The Game
by Dave
Summary: Jacen is stranded on a strange planet with five very different survivors. He struggles desperately as he tries to keep the group together while fighting against the elements. Jacen is tested to limits he didn’t know existed, and in the end, he needs t


The Game

by David Pontier

dpontier@hotmail.com

Disclaimer:

The following is a piece of fiction developed from the characters, settings, and events created by George Lucas. I am making no money on it in anyway because I am too lazy to try and get anything published. While I give anyone who reads this full authority to reproduce it as they see fit, I ask that my name and email address be included with it wherever it goes. All events, characters, and places included this work are fictitious and any similarity between these and reality perceived by you, the reader, simply means that you have been drinking way too much.

Summary:

This story comes a few weeks after then end of "Diamonds are Forever." Jacen is on his way to meet with his sister, when a botched pirate attack strands him and five others on an uninhabited planet. Jacen must hold the volatile group together against internal and external conflict while simultaneously fighting with his own emotional state. Jacen endures unimaginable anguish, culminating in a final confrontation with his greatest enemy - himself.

The Game

by David Pontier

[dpontier@hotmail.com][1]

The room was very well insulated.

Normally a Taorian Battle Cruiser's huge hyperspace engines would be audible throughout the entire ship. The steady thrum of the technological wonders usually filled the vessel like the pulse of an enormous beast. Like a heart beat, the durrasteel bulkheads acted as conduits, taking the rhythmic vibration to all corners of the ship.

Taorians were not known for their artistic ability and weren't ones to decorate the interior of their ships. They would have found that carpet alone went a long way toward reducing the sound reverberation. A Taorian would scoff at the suggestion, claiming that being able to feel the gentle tremor of the mighty ship's engines was an almost religious experience, bringing the ship's crew into a more intimate union with their surroundings. After a while, the ears of the crew (Taorians had four of them) would grow accustomed to the sound, and only when the ship dropped out of hyperspace would any of the crew notice the sound, and then only in its absence.

Though the ship in question was a Taorian Battle Cruiser, no Taorian had stepped foot (they had four of these also) on the flight deck in over a century. It was almost a blessing that the entire race had been wiped out by an incurable disease, because if even the meekest of the warrior race could see what the Galactic Cruise Line had done to the 30 battle cruisers it had purchased, they would probably declare war on the rest of life kind.

Carpet was the merest of improvements made to the former flagship of the Taorian fleet. The walls were upholstered with a vibration absorbent material that was soft to the touch and very colorful. You couldn't really see the walls, though, beneath the numerous paintings and holo displays that hung about everywhere. Each room in the vast ship had undergone vast changes. Cots were removed and luxurious queen and king sized sleep repulsers were put in their place. Lavish refreshers replaced crude toilets. Barren quarters were furnished with deep couches and expensive holo viewers.

The large war rooms and dinning halls were similarly assaulted by the interior decorators of the large cruise line. Long, military, dinning tables were replaced by individual tables positioned around the room, seating four or five a piece, while leaving a large dance floor in the center of the room. Where military holo screens and tactical stations once were, now luxurious lounge furniture and an excellently stocked drinks bar resided.

Back to the well-insulated room.

Jacen sat at a table, swirling the remains of his drink around lopsided revolutions in the bottom of his glass. He was listening to the beautiful orchestral music performed by live players, but wished instead to hear the thrum of the engines. Misery loves company, and the monotonous pulse of the engines seemed to fit his mood to a tee. The depressed 25-year-old had, of course, taken the luxurious liner for the very reason that he would be able to saturate his senses in the total immersion of extravagance that existed on this, the mother of all cruise liners.

Jacen was headed to see his sister. Jaina had the Scavenger, but Jacen could have very easily gotten himself a Republic shuttle if that had been what he really wanted. Instead he had figured he and Jaina would probably return together and that would leave them with an extra ship.

What the Jedi needed was something to cheer him up. His brother, parents, and uncle had been kind and helpful, but no one understood him like Jaina did. Jacen had returned from Estassia about two weeks ago and still hadn't fully recovered from the loss of Ariela. The young woman had been exactly what the rambunctious Jedi had needed to give his life a healthy balance between fun and reality. She had sparked in him a desire for a long and heart-felt relationship that he had only scoffed at in the past. Ariela was gone, and with her, a measure of Jacen's soul.

Jaina was off trying to settle a trade dispute between two worlds that were at each other's throats. The two cultures valued youth and beauty above age and wisdom, so Jaina had been sent in her mother's stead. Jacen realized that the last thing the trade negotiations needed was his carefree and sarcastic attitude to influence the talks, but the troubled Jedi really needed someone to talk to.

"Hi." The voice startled the brooding young man, and Jacen looked up quickly. The female in front of him was a Foraean, and a beautiful one at that. It wasn't as if the feline race had any really ugly members, but this woman was above the usual norm. Her golden brown hair fell about her round face, centered around a small, perfect nose. Her mouth was smiling and revealing a little white between the red lips, but not enough to make her sharp teeth seem frightening. Her spots trickled down from either ear and split into four separate trails on top of her bare shoulders, continuing two down the front of her body and two down her back, hidden, of course, beneath her green gown. The Foraean had smooth, golden skin, a characteristic about the beautiful race that had only emerged in the last fifty years. The previously fur covered race had mingled so much with humans that the fur had dissipated into soft hair, easily removed with a laser shaver.

Jacen wasn't often attracted to other races, but his depression had no chance against his hormones. Still, the Jedi wasn't in a social mood, and he knew all about the stereotype that hung over the females of the short-lived race. Jacen wasn't interested in any type of relationship this soon after Ariela, and definitely not in a one-night fling.

Jacen took a brief moment to look past his new friend to see a table not so far away consisting of four more female Foraeans, all watching this encounter with rapt attention. "Yes," Jacen said after about a 30-second pause.

"You look kind of lonely sitting here all by yourself." Her voice purred beautifully in Jacen's ears. "We were wondering if you were expecting someone?" The "we" obviously referred to the females sitting at the table behind her.

Jacen had felt quite content to sit there all night, simply downing Corellian ale after Corellian ale, but that wasn't why he had taken this three-day cruise from Coruscant. "No I wasn't," Jacen said cautiously, wanting to make sure that this encounter never left the dinning hall.

"Well, neither were we. We were kind of wondering if you wouldn't mind a bit of company, I mean for dancing. That is, if you dance?"

Jacen smiled briefly as he imagined Ariela asking that same question three weeks ago. "I do dance," he said, rising from his seat. "Though I don't think I can handle all of you at once."

The female smiled. "Well, I was the first one to take the dare, so I believe I get first honors."

Jacen smiled as he imagined the group of five daring each other to go over and talk to the handsome man sitting all by himself. "Jacen Solo," he said, extending his hand toward his dance partner.

"Garrenal," she replied, rolling the "r" in her name with a pleasant purr. The short-lived and non-family oriented race did not have last names. She took Jacen's extended hand in an iron grip. It wasn't anything the Jedi couldn't handle, but the strong corded muscles in her arm and hand contrasted violently to Ariela's more gentle touch.

Jacen watched the table of Foraean females turning green with envy despite their golden skin as he led Garrenal onto the dance floor. Though the situation tended to remind Jacen of his first meeting with Ariela, the similarity didn't go much further than the act of dancing. While Ariela had only come to Jacen's shoulder, Garrenal was only two decimeters shy of two meters, and could almost look the tall Jedi in the eye. While both dance partners were graceful, Ariela had been so from her prowess, while the Foraean was merely efficient. Jacen also had to physically struggle to take the lead in the slow number the band was playing, which hadn't been the case on Estassia.

The pair had started halfway through a song, and Jacen allowed Garrenal another song, much to the dislike of the four on-lookers. The next member of the group introduced herself as Torrella, rolling both the "r" and "l." She was much the same as Garrenal had been, tall and strong. Both, Jacen figured, were halfway through their 60-year life span, while he was only a fourth of the way through his race's normal life expectancy, and as a Jedi, he might live twice that long.

The third and fourth dancers brought no surprises, and Jacen found that with the dissimilarities between these females and Ariela he had almost forgotten about his lost love. He had almost forgotten that is, until the fifth and last member of the group came up for her turn.

She was young - very young. Naorrmi, as she introduced herself, was perhaps half the age of those who came before her, and maybe a child of one of them. While she had passed fully through her race's version of puberty and her curves matched and exceeded those of her elders, she had not yet put on the muscle that arrived in a female Foraean's third decade. Because of this, her waist and legs were still very slim and her shoulders not nearly as broad as those now sitting at the table watching. Her face was almost kitten-like in its innocence, her round, green eyes looking up at Jacen from a 20-centimeter disadvantage.

Naorrmi was almost 10 years younger than Jacen, and began the dance with slight trepidation. She had obviously been last because her seniority (or lack thereof) granted her no advantage over the other four Foraeans. Jacen accepted her offered hand and slipped his free arm around her waist, compelling her to move across the dance floor with him. Her touch was soft and gentle, her motions still unsure, having not undergone the vigorous combat training that usually accompanied the third decade's filling out.

Jacen's mind was adrift as the pair moved across the sparsely populated dance floor. His memories were flooding back to him, evaporating his former depression like a fire looses cold numbness. Such was his state of nostalgia that he allowed two songs go by before breaking off the embrace.

Naorrmi was aglow with adrenaline, and her four companions had looks of shock on their faces. Jacen had apparently put the young female through some of the most fluid and passionate dance moves that any of the experienced elders had seen before. Naorrmi was still breathless, as Jacen let go of her hand. "Thank-you," he said solemnly, and before the shocked, young Foraean could issue a reply, Jacen turned and walked out of the dance hall.

Captain Argnon paced impatiently in front of his captain's chair. He looked out into space from the pirate ship's large view screen at the forward section of the bridge. "ETA?" the captain barked.

"Three minutes, twenty-seven seconds before her arrival, Captain. That time less three seconds before detonation."

Argnon knew the time lapse between arrival and detonation better than anyone on the bridge. He had been the one who had taught them how to bring a ship out of hyperspace with hyper-dense detonators in the first place. If you detonated too soon, you would only create an interdiction field to yank the unsuspecting ship into real space. If you detonated too late, you risked blowing up the whole ship, or maybe missing it all together.

This would be a good capture, Argnon thought, as he ended his pacing and sat back down in his deep captain's chair. When you detonated the bombs at just the right time, the shock wave in hyperspace would be strong enough to knock out all sensors or weapons by jamming them with heavy space. This was a technique that he had perfected over the past five years. Interdictor cruisers were expensive and easy to spot on hyperspace radar. Potential targets could avoid contact with any large crafts they saw on their scopes by merely exiting hyperspace early and plotting a new course around the unknown ships. Besides, interdictor cruisers did nothing to the ships' weapons or sensors, giving the pirates no advantage over their prey other than surprise. Often surprise was enough, but Argnon was planning to hit a Taorian Battle Cruiser, or at least a former Taorian Battle Cruiser. It now served as the flagship for the most expensive cruise line in 12 sectors.

Argnon watched as his inexperienced, but well-trained, crew went about their work, preparing for the last few seconds of the countdown. The weapons officer had turned over the detonation controls to the computer, allowing its timer to initiate the explosion. The sensor officer watched the blip on the screen representing their target to see if there was any indication that the cruiser was alerted to their presence. The tactical officer kept a keen eye on the hyper-density detonators positioned in the cruiser's flight path to make sure their alignment and position remained accurate. The communications officer carefully monitored the cruiser's electronic emissions to ensure that no warnings were given and to jam the communications as soon as the attack begun.

The communications officer noticed the problem first. "Sir, I am picking up a very low frequency transmission from the cruiser."

"Is it within the normal communications decibel range?" the captain asked, not yet concerned. "Remember there are probably countless personal transmitters on that thing with all the well-to-do passengers on board." The officers who weren't busy smiled at this, remembering why their captain had chosen this risky target.

"No sir, the decibel emission is well above standards."

"On speaker," the captain replied, "decibel reduction, of course."

A very low humming sound filled the bridge. "The engines," someone offered a guess.

"Not at this frequency," the communications officer pointed out. "Besides, the engines pulse. They don't hum."

The tactical officer noticed the next change. "Sir, the detonators are moving slightly."

"A hyper-plow!" Argnon screamed, labeling the low humming. The name was pretty self-explanatory, but the captain continued. "It's used to clear debris. Quite unnecessary because any debris large enough to cause problems would have been calculated into the initial jump. I guess on a luxury cruise line you can't have any bumps in the road that might affect the passengers' comfort.

"Keep the detonators in position," he ordered the tactical officer, "I don't want to loose this catch." The timer slipped under ten seconds, and the captain could see that his tactical officer wasn't going to make it.

"Sir, they are now in position but out of alignment."

With a harsh curse toward his tactical officer's ancestral legitimacy, the captain leaped over to the station and took control. "Disengage the auto-destruct sequence," he commanded his weapons officer, seeing at once that he wouldn't be able to align the detonators in the four seconds the timer was giving him. If the devices detonated unaligned, they would still bring the cruiser out of hyperspace, bur Argnon could not guarantee that it would be incapacitated. His lone dreadnought didn't stand a chance against a fully armored Taorian Battle Cruiser.

"Transfer detonation controls to the tactical station," Argnon continued to talk as his fingers flew over the instrument panel in front of him. He saw out of the corner of his eye as the timer hit zero. One point two six seconds later Captain Argnon punched the detonation sequence.

Even as the huge cruiser popped into real-space, filling the dreadnought's view screen, Argnon knew he was too late and there would be no pillaging for his crew today. He looked briefly at the sensor reports coming from the cruiser's reactor and commanded his ship to get the heck out of the system.

Captain Freemont sipped his dinner wine as he looked out at the streaking stars. This ship is the smoothest ride I've ever felt, he thought to himself as he set his glass down on a table secured directly to a bulkhead and watched as the surface of the liquid didn't ripple in the slightest. "How much time left, Stimmer?"

"Over 37 hours still, Captain," the pilot of the huge cruiser responded to the odd statement.

"Very well," the captain replied, yawning deeply. It was very late and most of the passengers had gone to sleep already. "I'm going to my quarters now. You have the watch, correct?"

"Yes, sir," the man on duty realized that the captain might have had a bit too much to drink this night. These questions were rather ridiculous. No one called it a watch. What was there to watch? - just streaking stars.

"Make sure you notify me if anything happens."

The other officer didn't even bother a reply as the captain stumbled on his way out of the small navigation station. Smooth ride and I can't even walk straight, Captain Freemont ridiculed himself. The inebriated man gathered himself together and tried another step. He was thrown violently from his feet, sustaining a nasty bruise on his forehead.

"Uh, sir," the pilot began as the ship settled uncomfortably into normal space, "something has definitely happened."

"Report," the suddenly sober captain demanded from his position on the floor.

"We seem to have run into a hyperspace explosion."

"Pirates?"

"There was a small ship in the area, but external scanners are no longer working." The officer's fingers flew over the instrument panel, trying to discern what was wrong. "We need to abandon ship, sir."

"What?! What for?"

"No time, sir. We have seconds, a minute maybe."

"Go ahead, Stimmer."

The ship was equipped with a prerecorded announcement in case the captain was incapacitated during a crisis. Stimmer punched up the code now and executed the command. They heard the recording over the loudspeakers out in the hallway, and the expected result. One good thing about converting a battle cruiser into a luxury liner was that there was no shortage of escape capsules.

Both men in the navigation room knew that they were at least two minutes from the nearest capsule and accepted their fate. "What happened?" the captain repeated his earlier question, realizing they now had the rest of their lives to talk about it.

"A hyper-dense detonator exploded off our bow and jammed the hyperspace ramscoop with a burst of heavy space far in excess of most interdiction fields. The engines sucked the immense clog through the system before the safety filters could kick in and kill the hyperspace engines. Right now the replicators are working on the heavy space, transforming it into hyper-dense uranium and feeding it into the main reactor for fission. With the hyperspace engine still chugging away, trying to tear us into hyperspace through this heavy space, the reactor is going to go critical in about 27 seconds. It's really a toss-up which overloads first."

"Can't you do anything to stop it?"

"Not from here, sir. All of the stations with access to the reactor probably blew apart as soon as the intake sucked the heavy space through the system. There was nothing we could have done even if we were ready for it. It was basically a botched pirate maneuver."

Cursing the pirates was pointless. It wouldn't save anyone. "I sure hope we get most of the crew off."

"I count only 20 escape capsules deployed so far and I doubt any of them will be clear of the blast radius when we blow."

Jacen awoke suddenly a few seconds before the ship was yanked out of hyperspace. The Jedi had heard stories from his father, Mara, and Lando of how pirates worked, and that was Jacen's first suspicion as to what was happening. He quickly slipped on a pair of black pants, a forest green shirt, a pair of boots, and belted on his two lightsabers, which had remained in his cabin up until now. Jacen was in the hallway by the time he heard the captain's voice over the ship's speaker system telling the crew to abandon ship.

Apparently this was not a pirate attack, or if it was, it had gone sour very quickly. Jacen's Jedi responsibility was to help as many people into escape pods as he could before he left, but something else was nagging at him. As hundreds of people were running about screaming, the normally quiet hyperspace engines were producing a steady thrumming that all the insulation and/or excess noise in the world couldn't cover up.

Even without his siblings' in-depth knowledge of ship engines and how they functioned, Jacen sensed something catastrophically wrong with the ship's main reactor. All other thoughts were thrown to the wind when he realized that he had only a few seconds before the whole ship blew apart. There was nothing he could do for anyone else, for even if he got a couple people into escape pods they would never clear the blast radius in time. Jacen was not about to sacrifice his life in vain.

All of the quarters were equipped with their own pod, and Jacen raced back into his room and activated the device. The capsule was designed for one and was very cramped for someone of Jacen's height. The small pod blasted violently away from its mother, and through the small view panel in the capsule, Jacen could see hundreds of other little pods floating away from the huge cruiser.

Then the reactor went critical.

Jacen was aware of the power surge a split second before the engine blew apart, and was able to brace his pod with a strong Force bubble before the shock wave hit him. Jacen nearly lost all control as the explosion ripped through the ship killing hundreds of people instantly, their voices crying out into the Force for a brief agonizing moment before being silenced forever. The shock wave swept over the large spread of tiny escape capsules like a tidal wave covering a bed of hot coals, each life hissing out of existence in a brief struggle to maintain its heat.

Jacen's pod shuddered violently and was thrown far ahead of the shock wave. He quickly analyzed the situation to see if he could help anyone else. As the radius of the blast grew, the area of the spherical shock wave grew exponentially causing the wave to loose strength with each meter it expanded. Still, as it reached out to the first few capsules that had launched from the cruise liner, it was more than strong enough to rip apart a large ship.

Jacen reached out with the Force to the handful of pods still untouched by the destructive force and pulled on them desperately, trying to keep them just a head of the wave. He felt one explode, then another. As a third began to crumble under the force of the explosion, Jacen changed his tactic and erected a Force buffer between the pods and the shock wave. The five remaining escape capsules rode the buffer like a surfboard, bouncing and skidding along, while staying just ahead of the crushing wave.

Soon the shock wave dissipated enough to allow Jacen to relax his efforts and check the inhabitants of the pods. Each occupant seemed to be okay, with no serious injuries. A quick scan for other potential survivors showed that of the original ship compliment of 832, only the six had made it out alive.

The pods were programmed to seek out the closest inhabitable planet according to the occupant's life signs. As luck would have it, the cruiser had been passing by a system containing such a planet. Jacen thought about it for a while and realized that luck had little to do with it. The pirates probably needed somewhere close so they could unload and stash their stolen merchandise if their ship couldn't hold everything in one load. Jacen figured that it would take about seven hours till the six pods reached the planet, and he tried to rest.

Touch down was gentle enough due to an atmospheric parachute that opened on schedule. Jacen stirred from his Force slumber, quickly found the hatch release, and exited the life saving device. He was on the bottom of a rocky slope that rose above him to a height of 50 meters. Past the open area was the edge of a forest, continuing the descent on less rocky ground. Jacen strained to see into the valley below, but the trees rose too high.

The Jedi turned to regard the slope behind him, wondering if it would be advantageous to climb in order to get his bearings, when he saw another pod float gently down on top of the mountainside. The escape capsule landed gently enough, but then tumbled down the steep slope with the chute behind only gathering more rocks to join in the mini-landslide. The cascade of rocks that accompanied the pod down the embankment forced Jacen to take cover, giving the Jedi no opportunity to slow the descent with the Force. The tumbling escape capsule finally came to rest against the trunk of a large tree. The debris that followed the larger object didn't have enough momentum to follow the pod's entire route, and stopped flowing in a large dusty path outlining the pod's trail.

Jacen ran up to the inverted capsule, hoping the occupant wasn't too badly hurt. The hatch popped open as soon as the strong Jedi relieved the pressure from the tree, which had been keeping the craft closed. Groans from inside told Jacen that the passenger was both alive and male. A man, a couple years younger that Jacen emerged from the pod, slowly trying to stretch his sore limbs.

Jacen helped the man climb down the outside of the upside-down life vessel, soon bringing him to level ground with the Jedi. The survivor was half a head shorter than Jacen, wearing baggy sweat pants and a very thin, white T-shirt. Jacen looked at the odd attire, but quickly remembered that the pirate attack had come after hours when most of the passengers were asleep. Jacen looked down at his companion's feet, happy to see that the man had slipped on a pair of shoes, though he had no socks.

"Jacen Solo," the Jedi offered his hand, "are you okay?"

"Cary Yuven, thanks, I'm fine." Cary shook his head, still trying to comprehend what he had just been through while taking in his surroundings. "Boy, we were lucky. I saw most of the other pods get fried through the window. I was sure I was toast."

Jacen didn't see the point in discussing how close a call it was. It was over and they had made it. Move on. "I think there were a few other survivors. Let's see if we can find them."

"How?" Cary asked, looking around again. The trees were in front of them with the rocks at their backs, curving around slightly to the left and right with the trees creating an even border around the rise.

"Most escape devices like these are programmed to home in on each other so prospective survivors aren't separated by a great distance." Jacen started off to the right but stopped suddenly. "Check to see if your pod had any rations or water. I would think they would be well stocked."

"They were," Cary said, making it clear that the past tense had more than a passing significance. "The water was warm and the rations were stale."

Jacen sighed heavily. They might be on this planet for a few days before someone came for them, and this man had already consumed what was to be his portion of food and water for the stay. "I'll get mine," he finally said. A few minutes later, they were skirting the trees looking for an opening to descend.

The pair made their way into the foliage at their first opportunity, Cary not asking for an explanation for their course and Jacen not giving one. The forest was made up of relatively short (about 10 meters) but very strong trees. Their trunks were often too large for Jacen to encompass with his long arms, not that he tried. The wooden giants were not too dense, with each branch network staying relatively clear of its neighbors, and the root systems remained underground for the most part. The ground itself was littered with sticks and dead branches, with the rock content tapering off as Jacen and Cary distanced themselves from the peaked clearing.

The descent was gradual, but the relative shortness of the trees, and the low-hanging, leaf-covered branches obscured the path ahead. With this deterrent in place, Jacen still saw the next pod long before they reached it. Cary ran the last few steps when he saw the pod and came to stand directly underneath the suspended object. The chute was ensnared in the treetops, suspending the pod a little over three meters in the air.

"How are we going to get up there?" the younger man asked, quickly seeing that the conical life boat was suspended out of reach from either of the two trees that supported it.

"It looks sturdy enough," Jacen said aloud, but mainly to himself as he analyzed the ropes of the chute entangled in the branches. Without further comment, the Jedi leaped smoothly up to the hanging pod, causing it to sway ever so slightly as he landed.

Cary's mouth dropped wide at this sudden revaluation concerning his new found friend's abilities. Jacen didn't bother to offer an explanation or even look down as he worked at the outer hatch. It swung open and a damp, musty smell came out. Jacen recoiled slightly, but quickly regained his composure to check on the occupant. Curled up in a ball, apparently sleeping, was a Calamarian. The Mon Calamari was wearing a simple tunic, revealing his arms and most of his legs, and Jacen could clearly see that he was suffering from mild dehydration.

The Jedi urged the slumbering mind with the Force, gently bringing the amphibian to consciousness. Jacen saw the eye closest to him move slightly, the muscles around the huge pupil reflexively blinking and trying to will moisture into the dry optical sensor. The Mon Calamari's head turned slightly, bringing both to bear on Jacen and the light coming in through the open hatch.

"Are you okay?" Jacen asked quickly, wanting to identify himself as a friend.

The Calamarian nodded slowly, smacking his lips and testing his tongue for moisture in order to attempt speech. "Just a bit thirsty, son. Thirsty, but very glad to be alive."

"Have you drank your ration water yet?"

The Mon Calamari's face was full of confusion, "Ration water?"

Jacen reached into the pod from his precarious perch in the outside and flipped open a hatch revealing a liter container of water and a similar thermos with solid rations. Before Jacen could stop the parched amphibian, the Calamarian had the quick-release cap off of the thermos and eagerly poured the water down his throat. A lot of the water splashed onto his face and arms, but was quickly soaked up by the skin.

As a people, Mon Calamari spend each night in water, sleeping in specially treated baths to allow them at least 14 waking hours in which they don't need water. The accident on the cruise ship had occurred right as most people were going to bed, and likely interrupted or even prevented this survivor's bath, meaning he hadn't had a soaking in over 24 hours.

"You should have saved some of that water," Jacen admonished the satisfied Mon Calamari. "We might have a distance to travel before we find water."

"Find water?" The idea was as odd to the Calamarian as the notion that one needed to "find air." Growing up on a planet that was over 90 percent ocean, allowed the peaceful race to take water for granted. Curious as to what kind of place could exist without water readily available, the occupant of the pod stuck his head out of the small craft and for the first time realized the gravity of his situation.

Jacen didn't give the Calamarian a chance to panic and acted quickly. The Jedi concentrated on the weight of the capsule and gradually released the tension from the four chute ropes supporting it. Once he had the craft suspended under his own power, Jacen drew his lightsaber and slashed through the four cords attaching the chute. The Jedi lowered the pod slowly, giving Cary yet another thing to gawk at.

Jacen leaped gracefully off the top of the now grounded lifeboat and allowed the shocked Calamarian to exit his pod. Soon both Cary and the newest member of the trio stood next to each other staring at the Jedi before them. Jacen simply offered his hand in introduction. "Jacen Solo."

The Mon Calamari took it slowly, his partially webbed hand dwarfing Jacen's. "Calin Allenbar, pleased to meet your acquaintance Jacen."

Before Cary could demand an explanation for what had just happened, the crashing of brush and cursing of gods could be heard coming through the forest towards them. "Lift up your feet and you won't trip over them," a gruff, masculine voice declared to a possible companion.

The response was more cursing and another crash of brush. Jacen thought the second voice sounded female, but it was too quiet and distant. Cary and Calin looked at Jacen questioningly, already deciding that the extraordinary young man was going to be their leader.

"More survivors I suspect," the Jedi answered their glances.

"Not natives?" Cary asked, concern creeping into the question.

"I doubt anyone native to this forest would be making anything near the noise that this group is."

"We should go to them," Calin stated.

Jacen nodded in agreement and the three men started off toward the voices. Jacen was excited to meet up with more of the survivors, knowing that he was the reason anyone had survived the destruction of the cruise liner. Jacen had to remind himself in his haste, that the pair behind him could not move as fast as he could. The Jedi had already leaped over a fallen tree, scampered across a pile of uneven rocks, and quickly scrambled up a steep, three-meter slope before he looked back to see his two friends far behind.

Jacen had moved quickly, but he had also done it with extreme silence. The former student of Yavin IV was used to creeping up on animals in the dense jungle on the moon. Cary, an inexperienced youth, and Calin, a being used to water, made as much noise as the pair the trio was in search of. Calin tripped heavily over the fallen tree while Cary was dancing on the rocks, sounding like he was performing a complex tap routine on stage.

Up on the small rise, Jacen could see the two people they had heard earlier. The big one suddenly came up short, grabbing on to the smaller one's arm. Jacen enhanced his vision with the Force to get a better idea what he was looking at. The large one was covered in gray fur with small blotches of white showing on his face and arms. He wore a ribbed vest and full-length pants kept up by a holster-carrying belt. His hand hovered over the butt of his heavy blaster as he heard the commotion caused by Jacen's companions. The creature had two cones protruding from either side of his head, and Jacen sensed a shimmer coming from them as the extra-sensory devices tried to home in on the unseen intruders. Jacen immediately recognized him as a Gotal.

The Gotal's companion was frail - especially so next her large companion. The woman seemed to be near 70 years of age and was wearing a yellow T-shirt that was too big for her with tan pants and dress shoes. She might have been smaller than her companion, but the look she gave the Gotal as he held her arm secure was one of such furry that Jacen was glad he was 50 meters away.

The Jedi's acute hearing picked up their conversation. "Do you hear that?" the Gotal was saying. "I told you that there were other survivors in this direction."

"Or wild animals smelling your rotten fur. Now let go of me you flea ridden piece of filth."

The Gotal ignored the old woman, not showing any care that she was pounding on his arm with her other hand, desperately trying to free herself. Instead, the tall alien was looking intently at Jacen's observation post. The Jedi knew about Gotal's ability to sense energy in life and emotions, but was sure that he was hidden behind a large bush and his emotions concealed in the Force. Still, the Gotal stared at Jacen's position and even took a few steps in his direction.

Jacen was confused until he noticed, for the first time, that Cary was standing next to him in plain view, staring at the approaching pair. Jacen decided that the game was up, and also revealed himself just as Calin made it up the hill. Upon seeing the threesome, the Gotal released the woman and quickened his pace towards the trio. "This way woman."

"I will decide where I will or won't go, you over-grown mountain goat."

"Suit yourself, but if there are wild beasts about, you will find there is safety in numbers."

The woman sighed and cursed again, but fell in line behind the Gotal. "Well met," Jacen called when he was certain that all five of the people involved could see each other. "You come from the liner?" Jacen asked, though he could see from the woman's attire that only arousal in the middle of the night with death at hand would cause someone to dress as she was dressed.

The Gotal nodded. "And yourself?" Again the question was unnecessary. How would Jacen have known of the liner unless he had also come from there?

Jacen nodded to complete the inquiry. "My name is Jacen Solo. This is Cary Yuven and Calin Allenbar."

"Torrick Bransh," the Gotal replied, taking the offered hands of the three people in front of him.

Everyone was quiet as they waited for the woman to finish the introductions. "Gertide Lown," she said quickly, feeling suddenly out-numbered.

"Is this everyone who survived?" Cary asked.

Jacen was about to answer, but Torrick beat him to it. "I counted at least five other pods besides my own that escaped destruction, though I don't know how even one made it intact."

"Where is the other pod?" Cary asked, looking directly at Jacen as he did so.

Torrick was taken aback at the youth's dependence in Jacen. The Gotal had been a mercenary scout for 40 years and had always been in command of the situation no matter the circumstances. He had been the one who knew there was still another pod, and with his sensory cones, he would be the only one who had a chance of finding it, yet this schoolboy turned to Jacen instead.

Torrick looked at Jacen. The young man was tall, though still half a head shorter than Torrick's two meters. He looked well built and athletic, but the Gotal could also sense something else. Jacen had a royal look about him. The posture he used and the way he spoke told Torrick that this man had extensive formal training in the courts and might even be the son of royalty. He might look sure and confident now, but when trouble hit, the fact that this man had probably never been in the wilderness before would shine through and Torrick would probably be handed the reins of the group.

Watching Jacen's reaction to Cary's question made the Gotal think that his time might come even sooner than that. Torrick had already scouted the area with his acute sense and felt a slight sentient emotion off to the northwest and up the slope a little. Jacen, the Gotal was sure, could only guess.

"To the northwest," Jacen said confidently, pretending not to notice Torrick's surprise. The observant Jedi had noticed that the proud Gotal had taken offense at not being chosen as the leader and, not wanting any conflict, didn't expound on what he felt coming from that direction and what the Gotal's limited range almost certainly could not feel.

The five survivors fell in line, and Jacen set a brisk pace. Gertide quickly fell to the back of the pack, cursing every centimeter of the way. Mon Calamari were a peaceful and honorable race, and Calin quickly offered his assistance to the struggling woman. "Get away from me you walking squid. You smell like my husband's sweaty socks."

Jacen didn't look back at the encounter, but could guess what was now occurring. The last insult ended as if she meant to go on about the Calamarian or the forest or life in general, but she had shut up quickly when she heard what she had said. Everyone realized at that moment that half a dozen hours ago, her husband and his collection of sweaty socks and been incinerated when the cruise liner blew apart. This more than explained her foul mood and everyone decided it was best to leave her alone for now.

Torrick only gave the exchange passing interest and quickened his pace to fall in step next to the leader of the pack. The Gotal paused briefly before coming abreast with the Jedi, noticing that the feet of the young man moved with exceptional fluidity over tree roots and past rocks with his head never once looking down.

"You made a lucky guess back there," Torrick stated when he was walking beside Jacen. The Jedi really couldn't think of a good response and didn't give one. "You know I can sense people's emotions. I could have told you where the pod was so you wouldn't have had to guess."

Jacen barely restrained his laughter. Torrick didn't for one second think that Jacen had guessed. The Jedi realized that he was trying to goad Jacen into telling him how he had known where the pod was, and if Jacen had guessed, Torrick wanted Jacen to know that he had special skills that should put him in command instead.

"What is the person in the pod feeling?" Jacen asked, trying to sound curious.

The Gotal smiled, thinking that Jacen was already starting to relinquish his command. After a moment's concentration he responded. "She is very frightened," Torrick said, stressing the fact that he even knew the gender of the person in question.

"Why is she frightened?" Jacen asked, his voice giving no indication that what Torrick had said was news to him.

The experienced scout tried to discern the reason for the fear, but didn't even know how to access that aspect of the unknown female's psyche. "She won't tell me."

"She doesn't have to tell you," Jacen responded, squinting as they neared a clearing and the sun found a break in the trees. "Don't analyze the girl, look at her surroundings."

Jacen's comment implied that he knew the female's age, something Torrick hadn't discerned. The young man also knew why the girl was in peril. Torrick grew suddenly resentful, realizing the elected leader of this group had not been relinquishing his authority, but merely testing a potential second in command - a test that Torrick had failed.

Jacen had hoped to humble the proud Gotal, not wishing to anger him, but he couldn't dwell on that now as the sixth pod came into view. What had looked like an isolated clearing from the distance, opened up into a rocky ledge bordering a gorge 10 meters across and 30 deep. Aside from the large clearing, the trees bordering the gorge came within a couple meters of the sudden drop off. The deep ravine ran perpendicular to the fivesome's path, extending northeast up the mountain and southwest, winding down the gradual slope.

Directly across the gorge from Jacen and Torrick hung the last escape capsule. It was suspended by one of the border trees some four meters in the air and was swinging violently as two huge bears were trying to bend the strong tree down so they could reach the foreign object. Bears are not normally curious creatures, Jacen knew, but the way the girl was screaming continually reminded the bears that they had a meal coming if they could bring the pod down another meter. The stupid animals didn't realize that the way they were bending the tree would bring the pod down, but also out over the gorge.

Jacen watched as one of the animals climbed a short way up the tree, not being able to reach the thinner branches that held the deployed parachute. The incredible weight of the bear would bring the tree branch just low enough to give its companion a chance at it. The other bear crept up to the edge of the deep gorge and tentatively reached out for the suspended meal in a can. The pod was just inside the bear's reach, and as he flailed at it, his paw occasionally hit the side of the cone shaped craft. The bear could get the pod rocking and spinning through his efforts, but he couldn't lean out far enough to get a grip on it.

Inside the pod, the girl was screaming desperately, occasionally yelling at the bears to get away. When the other bear on the tree realized that his companion could reach the pod, he felt his job was done and leaped off the branch to join his partner on the ledge, not realizing that without his weight, the tree would bend right back. This happened, and both bears spent a short while desperately jumping up at the suspended pod before arguing whose turn it was to bend the branch.

After a few moments Jacen understood the situation well enough to act. He also realized that it wouldn't be long before one of the bears tried leaping out onto the pod when it was suspend over the gorge. The weight of either one of the bears would certainly bring both it and the pod crashing to the bottom of the canyon.

"What do we do?" Torrick asked without thinking. He cursed himself immediately afterwards. Now he was relying in Jacen's abilities.

"We save the bears," Jacen replied, moving to the edge of the gorge.

"What?!" the Gotal replied, thoroughly confused. "I believe the girl is the one in peril. What do we need to save the bears from?"

"Us," Jacen responded as he looked down into the canyon. Jacen continued walking along the edge of the gorge looking down and across the deep crease. "It's obvious that we are going to help the girl, but there are two ways we can do it. We can kill the bears, or we can save them." Jacen stopped when he saw what he was looking for. "I suggest we save them."

"You have a plan?"

Without answering Jacen tensed his legs and leaped across the gorge, landing on the other side, 15 meters southwest of the bears, careful not to engage their attention. This was Torrick's first exposure to the unusual talents of the young man, and he turned around to see Cary and Calin, who had just emerged from the clearing, shrug their shoulders.

Torrick turned his attention back across to see Jacen attempting to pry a huge boulder from the side of the canyon. The Gotal had no idea what he was trying to achieve. Even if the young man got the rock loose, it was fully a meter across and in his awkward stance had no chance of heaving it up onto the ledge. Torrick assumed Jacen had realized the same thing when he stood up from his work. Instead of giving up, though, Jacen detached a cylinder from his belt and brought to life a glowing sword.

Calin had been in his escape capsule the last time Jacen had used his lightsaber, and this was the first opportunity Torrick had to see it, but both of them immediately understood Jacen's odd abilities. "A Jedi," they said together, as they watched Jacen quite easily remove the rock from its resting-place. Instead of falling down into the gorge, the boulder levitated easily up to the Jedi's feet. After he deactivated his weapon, both Jacen and the rock disappeared into the trees.

"What is he doing?" Gertide asked. This was the first time anyone had heard her speak without any bitterness in her voice.

"I don't know," Cary answered, "but he better do it quick."

The bears were back at their game; one of them sitting in the tree while the other batted at the pod like a baby with a crib toy. Suddenly a piercing wale could be heard from the forest across the gorge. Both bears quickly stopped what they where doing, their heads up and their ears alert.

"What was that?" Calin asked, not sure he wanted to know.

"That was a she bear," Torrick responded, knowing exactly why the two male bears across the gorge were concerned. "It's a she bear, and it sounds like she has cubs."

The bear in the tree quickly got down and neither animal paid the pod any attention as it sprung back over their heads. Both of them were looking into the woods, wondering if the sound had been an isolated cry, or if a mother bear was really coming.

The scream came again, and it carried with it a note of extreme agitation. Then the sound of something very large coming through the woods toward them could be heard. A few more screeches came as the crashing of small shrubs and cracking of broken twigs came ever closer to the two very frightened bears. With one last look at the pod that had escaped them, the two animals bolted into the woods, heading in the opposite direction from the mother bear.

"What about Jacen, or the girl in the pod?" Gertide asked, showing that she did in fact have of some concern for others.

Both questions were answered a moment later as Jacen emerged from the woods, pushing the large boulder in front of him. Jacen gave one last mother bear yell as he pushed the rock with a great heave. The stone smashed a few stray twigs before it launched itself over the edge of the gorge. Torrick grinned broadly at the Jedi's trickery in saving both the girl and the bears.

Jacen stood beneath the spinning and swaying pod and looked up. The girl had the hatch open and peered out to see what this new monstrosity that had crashed through the forest and chased away her tormentors looked like. Jacen looked directly into the eyes of Naorrmi, the young Foraean he had danced with the night before. Jacen was shocked beyond imagination. No wonder the bears were trying to get in the pod. The large canine animals could probably smell the frightened kitten trapped in the pod.

Jacen turned to the tree trunk and quickly scampered up to the anchor point of the chute. There was plenty of excess cord tangled in the tree and Jacen was able to lower the pod all the way to the ground. Jacen didn't bother climbing back and floated down the five-meter drop.

As soon as Jacen hit the ground, Naorrmi burst from the pod to embrace her rescuer. Jacen was more than a little surprised at the girl's attire, or lack of it. While everyone else had simply thrown on whatever they could find in the frantic moments after the abandon ship announcement was made, Naorrmi had apparently not even bothered. She was wearing a two piece outfit that was both sleeveless and pantless. As she neared him, it reminded Jacen of a bikini Jaina had purchased a few months ago that had sent their father through the roof.

Naorrmi hugged Jacen tightly, and the Jedi returned the embrace somewhat, feeling a little uncomfortable. "Oh, Jacen, you saved me. I didn't want to leave them, I really didn't, but they nearly forced me into the escape capsule. They insisted that I be the first one off the ship. Oh, Jacen, I'm scared. What if they didn't make it? What if I never see them again?"

Jacen quickly realized that she was talking about the other, older Foraeans whom she had been with last night. Jacen broke off the embrace and held Naorrmi's shoulders at arm's length. "Listen to me," he said as calmly as he could, "the others are gone. Very few made it away from the ship."

"Are we alone?"

Jacen couldn't tell if she was afraid of this fact or wished it to be true. Jacen shook his head and let his gaze wander over Naorrmi's shoulder across the gorge. The young Foraean followed his glance and saw the four other survivors. "Is that all who made it?"

Jacen nodded once she returned her eyes to him. "We aren't sure exactly where we are, but I'm willing to bet that there are people living on this planet somewhere. We're going to need to stick together until we can find a way to get home. I'm going to need you to be strong, okay?"

Naorrmi nodded, sniffing some stray tears back up into her head. "I won't be scared."

"No one's asking you not to be scared," Jacen said, slowly shaking his head. "I even get scared sometimes. I'm just asking you to be strong."

Naorrmi tried to smile. "I can be strong. In a couple years I'll be able to kick your butt."

After dancing with her elders, Jacen didn't deny the claim. "Good. Now let's get back to the others before the two bears come back." Naorrmi was about to ask how, when Jacen cut her off. "Get on my back and hold on tight." She did what she was told and left deep claw marks in Jacen's shoulders as he launched both of them back across the ravine.

Naorrmi got off his back, quite weak in the knees at the unexpected leap and looked at Jacen with eyes so wide the Jedi thought the small brown orbs might role out of their sockets. "That butt kicking might have to wait a little more than a couple years," Jacen kidded with a mischievous grin.

The Jedi quickly broke off the encounter to turn and introduce everyone. Jacen wasn't quick enough. "Hello," Cary said as he walked up to Naorrmi, obvious infatuation in his voice. He took a moment to gain control of his eyes, which were preoccupied with gazing up and down the Foraean's sensual figure, the sleeping attire leaving little to the imagination. "My name is Cary Yuven. This is Torrick Bransh, Calin Allenbar, and Gertide Lown."

Gertide took one look at what Naorrmi was wearing and how Cary was reacting and rolled her eyes in disgust. "Sex crazed lunatic." Apparently as soon as everyone was out of danger the old woman reverted to her old, rotten self.

"My name is Naorrmi," the young Foraean replied, acting coy towards the young man's attention, liking it immensely.

"What a beautiful name."

The two continued talking for a while, but Jacen walked away from the group and back toward the ravine. Torrick walked quietly up beside him and briefly joined his gaze into the bottom of the gorge. "What do you see?"

"Nothing," Jacen responded. "That's what troubles me. We're going to need water pretty soon, especially the Calamarian. Most creases like this are formed by flowing water, but the bottom of this gorge is as dry as a bone."

"Could have been an earthquake," the Gotal offered.

Jacen nodded, thinking about other geological occurrences capable of carving a mountainside. He looked down the slope of the mountain they were on, following the ravine as it snaked around a bend and out of sight. "No," Jacen said, looking at the smooth curves in the gorge, "this was made by water." The Jedi paused further in thought and looked up into the sky. "Did you manage to see where we landed latitude-wise on this planet?"

Torrick tried to remember what he had seen out of the pod's small window. "I believe we landed in the southern portion of the temperate-zone, though depending on this planet's tilt, that could be inaccurate."

"It sounds about right," Jacen said. "From the temperature, the sun's position in the sky, and the fact that some of the flowers haven't yet fully bloomed I'm guessing this is early spring. This gorge should be running fast with melted snow."

"Dry year?"

"Let's hope not."

Half an hour later the six survivors of the botched pirate attack were walking in the bottom of the gorge, heading southwest. Jacen had gone back and collected the water and food rations from both Naorrmi's and Calin's pods, while Torrick had been clever enough to remember his and Gertide's. Cary carried his empty containers feeling foolish, but it showed very little as he spent most of his time trying to engage Naorrmi in conversation. Jacen had given Calin his empty water container and full food ration to carry, but kept Naorrmi's on his belt, as she didn't have anywhere to put them.

They were at the bottom of the ravine because Jacen figured it would be smoother travel and more shade. Plus there was a meter deep and two meter wide trough in the middle of the huge trench that, as far as Jacen could tell, had run full just a day ago. The Jedi hoped there might be some sort of retaining pond or even a lake at the end of this gorge so they could get a good supply of water. Jacen and Torrick had told each other they were willing to go without food or water for the sake of the others. The Jedi said so because he could go days without nourishment, and the Gotal didn't want to be shown up.

The group walked in double file, Jacen and Torrick leading the way, with Naorrmi and Cary coming next. The last pair was an odd mix with Calin trying desperately to get the cranky old woman to come out of her shell, but Gertide would hear nothing of it, occasionally telling the "smelly fish" to "keep his gills shut."

They walked for the rest of the day, about four hours, only stopping once for a brief rest at Calin's request. The Mon Calamari had already drank all of Jacen's water and although his skin seemed normal, the son of Han and Leia had been around Admiral Ackbar enough to now that Calin's skin was much lighter than it should be. According to Torrick, the Calamarian could have his water too, but Jacen didn't think anyone else would give up their water willingly.

Cary would probably have been willing to give up his water to impress Naorrmi if he hadn't drank it already. Jacen didn't know what to think about the human and Foraean. Cary's intentions were obvious, but Naorrmi was harder to read. She willingly talked to the young male, even laughed convincingly at his attempts at humor, but Jacen still caught her looking intently at him on the occasion when Cary was distracted with something else.

The potential for conflict in this small group was incredible. Torrick was currently content with playing second delka pipe, but if Jacen ever messed up, the Jedi knew the Gotal would seize the opportunity to take command. Cary wanted Naorrmi, Naorrmi wanted Jacen, and Jacen didn't want any kind of relationship this soon after Ariela. Calin was a couple days without water away from death, and Gertide was simply an extra thorn no one needed.

How come we weren't trained for this? the Jedi asked his distant uncle rhetorically. I can fight off the most heinous enemies the galaxy has ever produced, Jacen continued his thoughts, but I feel sorely inadequate to keep this group of six nobodies together.

When nightfall came, they were still in the gorge. The ravine wall's height had decreased by more than half, and they probably had a few more hours walk before they emerged from the gorge at the bottom of the mountain. The small trench in the bottom of the ravine still had not produced water, but Jacen tried to sound hopeful.

"We'll stop here tonight. The dirt in the dried up creek is soft enough to sleep on. In fact . . ." Jacen's voice trailed off as he thought of something. The Jedi stepped into the meter deep trench and drew both of his lightsabers. After a few short moments' work he had doubled the depth in a small area. He had hoped to find water, but had only found soft mud.

Calin had realized his intention from the start. He wasn't thrilled with the result but accepted it with realism. "It'll do for the night." In the privacy of the fast coming darkness and the hole Jacen had dug, Calin removed his tunic and nestled himself into the mud, giving his body a chance to soak up the moisture.

"I'm not sleeping in the mud!" Gertide announced loud enough for her dead husband to hear.

"Don't worry," Torrick responded, "the Jedi will carve up a nice comfy rock just for you." The Gotal had become quite agitated with the woman's constant complaining.

If the angry two-meter tall, 120 kilogram Gotal scared the short, frail woman, she did a good job of hiding it. "Why don't you use your horns and do it yourself!"

Torrick growled deeply. "They aren't horns!"

"Enough," Jacen interrupted. "You don't have to sleep in the mud." The Jedi walked a little ways from where Calin had settled down and, using his lightsabers, tilled up a few meters of the dry streambed. He didn't go deep enough to bring up any moisture, but made the ground much softer. Cary and Naorrmi made themselves comfortable. Jacen was glad to see that they didn't sleep side-by-side, but laid down in a line.

"I'm not sleeping in the dirt either," Gertide insisted. The woman walked over to the edge of the gorge and sat down with her back against the rock wall.

"Looks mighty comfortable," Torrick said of the woman's choice as he prepared to lay down next in line after Cary. "What of you, Jedi?" he asked as he noticed that Jacen had made no arrangements for himself.

"I was going to scout ahead to-"

"Your not going to leave us here alone, are you?" Naorrmi asked, suddenly frightened.

"You won't be alone," Cary tried to comfort her, but next to Naorrmi's concern, his comment seemed very inadequate.

"I won't go far," the Jedi lied. He planed on going several kilometers past the end of the gorge to see where he could find water. "Besides nothing can get you in here." Jacen looked around at the high walls of the gorge to show her that she was safe.

"What if the animals have wings, or come from up the gorge? You can't leave us."

Jacen wanted to tell her that Torrick and his blaster could take care of anything that would find them, but he really couldn't be sure of that. Beside, he realized that the distressed young Foraean would except nothing but his promise to stay here. "Okay, I'll stay."

"Then I'll scout ahead," Torrick said suddenly, rising from the creek bed. He suddenly saw an opportunity to be the leader. If he could find out the best way to go, then he would be in charge.

"You need your rest," Jacen admonished him. "You've gone all day without water and might go all tomorrow too. If you spend all night walking you will have no strength left. We will need you if we find trouble. I'll stay awake tonight and keep watch. I can get all the rest I need in an hour."

Torrick didn't argue the point, realizing the wisdom in the statement. He'd show them he wasn't useless before this little adventure was over, of that he was sure.

Morning came very slowly in the deep gorge. The sky was bright long before the sun rose high enough in the air to be seen above the tall walls. Jacen didn't wait for that though, knowing the cool morning air, still heavy with dew, would be the best time to travel. Everyone ate a small portion of their food rations and drank a small portion of water. Torrick drank as much as he felt he would need and then gave the rest of his canteen to Calin. The Mon Calamari accepted the gift graciously. Naorrmi offered some of her water and food to Cary, but he refused vehemently, telling her he was fine. It never occurred to Gertide that she even could share.

They traveled without incidence the entire morning. The height of the canyon wall decreased much slower than Jacen had guessed and it wasn't until early afternoon that they reached the foot of the mountain. The ravine turned a bit as it descended the mountain and entered the valley bellow heading due west.

The dry creek bed emptied into the valley floor and seemed to simply disappear. If water had flowed recently, the tall grass of the valley had soaked it up before it had a chance to collect anywhere. The valley itself was a wide expanse of rolling hills and tall grass that stood a meter high in some places. The grass near the foot of the mountain and the morning shade of the trees was a vibrant green, but changed to a golden hue as it progressed into the open prairie.

"No water, is there?" Gertide pointed out quite ruthlessly, as she took a long draw on her own canteen.

The prairie land was bordered north and south by trees that eventually rose up into mountains. The closest line of trees in either direction seemed to Jacen's Force enhanced vision to be about 200 kilometers away, a little over two and a half days travel. Straight ahead to the west seemed like the best bet. The tallest mountains were in front of them. Jacen could count at least seven distinct peaks, all snow capped, and all within 300 kilometers. He knew that with snow came water. He also knew that they didn't have to walk the entire distance to the mountains. There should be a rather large lake at the base of the mountains on the other side of the prairie's rolling hills. There might even be a river that cut through the grassland.

"How far to those mountains?" Cary asked, seeing the snow and thinking along the right lines.

"The mountains themselves are probably four days away, but the foothills, where the spring runoff will likely be is probably only another day and a half. In the mean time, there might be a river or a lake hidden in those hills." Jacen pointed ahead to the rolling prairie that hide the landscape ahead, save the towering mountains behind them.

The sun was three hours away from dipping behind the western peaks, and Jacen suggested that everyone took a rest and eat a little more. "We can walk late tonight, rise early tomorrow, and be in the foot fills by tomorrow night. There's bound to be water down there."

"Just like here?" Gertide asked, motioning to the dry creek bed in which they were all standing.

Jacen wanted to rip out the old woman's throat, but instead merely smiled at her and looked up at the mountain they had just descended. "I don't see any snow at the top of this mountain," Jacen replied. Truth be known, Jacen couldn't even see the top of this mountain due to the tall trees and gradual slope.

Everyone left the gorge, or what was left of it, and ventured into the nearby trees to find some shade from the setting sun. This time Cary accepted Naorrmi's offer and drank some of her water. Calin managed to finish off the rest of Torrick's water but still looked like he could soak up another 50 liters. Jacen was seriously wondering if the Mon Calamari would make it across the grassland, especially tomorrow afternoon when the sun hit its zenith and there was no shade anywhere.

"This is a game to you isn't it?"

Jacen was leaning against a tree and Torrick's question caught him totally by surprise. "Excuse me?"

"This whole thing is just a test of sorts. You know that you are going to survive no matter what happens to us. Trying to keep us alive too is just kind of a game."

The two of them were removed from the rest of the group, standing on the edge of the tree line, watching the sun slowly dip below the western peaks. "I don't think this is a game, Torrick. This is life and death. I don't think Calin thinks this is a game, or if he does, it isn't a very fun one."

"I'm not talking about Calin or any of the others. I'm talking about you. I can sense certain things, you know," the Gotal tapped his head cones. "This is just a game to you. Maybe not necessarily this situation right here, but life in general is a game. You Jedi have been dealt a great hand in life, and just love to watch the rest of us play out ours desperately trying to match you."

Jacen wanted to deny this odd observation, but couldn't find the right words. The Jedi had never really thought of life as a game. Was it? Jacen remembered how he had analyzed the situation earlier with all the potential problems and how he was supposed to juggle them and bring everyone safely through. That's the same thing that he and Jaina used to do when they were young and still playing with toys. The twins would stack problem upon problem on the two figurines they each controlled, and had a great time battling through the stuffed animals, exploring the towers of blocks, and eventually meeting the evil rubber monster at the end. They always planned it so that they defeated the monster just as Mom called them for dinner. Even the timing of the whole thing was part of the game.

Jacen could almost see the parallel with this situation, but refused to accept it. He did not think of this as a game no matter what Torrick said he could sense.

They started out across the tall grass with still two hours before the sun would disappear before their target peaks. They only needed to deal with the sun half of the time, though, as the hills rolled up and down in steady succession, giving them shade as they climbed and sun as they descended. The soft breeze cooled them somewhat and made the tall blades of grass around them move in unison like a huge flock of Corellian moon hens.

The ground they walked on was occasionally pot marked with holes belonging to small ground animals, but it didn't bother most of the group. Calin and Torrick had enormous feet, and only a cave worm's hole would ensnare them. Jacen was alert enough to avoid them, while Cary allowed his barefooted partner, to whom this terrain was nothing new, lead a safe path. This left Gertide.

"Curse these wretched shoes to the underworld. I swear you are leading us across the largest, potholed area in the known universe. Why couldn't you have chosen a nice granite path like before?"

"I'm sorry we didn't inform the Coruscant Infrastructure Corporation as to where we were planing to walk," Torrick bit back, "else they could have built a 200 kilometer sidewalk just for you."

Jacen put a hand on his shoulder. They had only been walking for half an hour, with the trees behind still visible and the mountains ahead only barely clearer. They couldn't afford to start bickering now. Still, Gertide might need a simple lesson.

"What is the problem?" the Jedi asked, halting the group to turn and look at the trailing woman.

"It's these shoes I'm wearing. I just wanted to slipped something on before jumping in the pod and these are the first things I found."

Jacen had seen the four centimeter heels earlier, and was frankly in awe that she had managed thus far as well as she had. He walked over to her and presented an open hand. "Let me see them," he said as his other arm began to remove one of his lightsabers.

"What are you going to do, cut off the heels?" Gertide had to think she knew everything.

She handed both the shoes to Jacen, and before she had fully brought her arm back, Jacen had completed the operation. The woman looked at the result, not quite expecting what she saw. "You cut them in half, you clumsy oaf!"

Jacen had indeed sliced both shoes in half and now took a few steps away from the group and hurled all four pieces in quick succession to the north. Each piece flew so far that it disappeared from sight before anyone could see it land. "You'll walk barefoot, and I'll heal your blisters when we stop."

Gertide was beside herself. "How dare you, you little punk?! I'm old enough to be your grandmother. You treat me with respect!"

"You can spank me later," Jacen replied and turned to walk past the rest of the group to the front.

Cary was still looking off to where the shoes had gone and didn't see his "girlfriend" lean over to Jacen as he passed. "Can I have a turn later too?" she asked shyly.

Jacen realized what she was referring to and turned a deep red. The flustered Jedi quickly walked forward, tripping on an unseen hole, and nearly spraining his ankle.

The next few hours were relatively quiet with only small conversations among pairs. Torrick asked a few questions about Jacen's abilities, and the Jedi responded with one or two word answers, devoting most of his attention to the area around them. In the fast approaching darkness, he needed his Force sensitivity to detect any predators that might be lurking in the open field.

"I doubt anything will bother us tonight," Torrick said, noticing the group leader's alertness. "Most grassland animals are not nocturnal."

"True," Jacen responded, the nature loving Jedi knew that as well as anyone, "but I've never been on this planet before, and I've learned to expect the unexpected."

"Especially in a game like this," Torrick added. Jacen gave him a frustrated look, but didn't respond.

The night was cooler than before, the tall grass not holding heat as well as the mountain rocks had. Jacen picked the top of a small knoll to spend the night. It was short enough that they didn't outline themselves in the bright moonlight for kilometers in every direction, yet tall enough that any approaching danger would have to climb to get them.

There were no trees to speak of thus far in the grassland, and Jacen sorely wished he could have something to lean against as he prepared to spend the night in watch over the group. The previous morning he had woken Torrick before dawn, and the capable Gotal had kept watch for an hour while Jacen induced a Jedi trance to obtain the refreshment he needed. This process allowed the young man to stay awake all night to calm the spoken fears of Naorrmi, as well as the silent ones of the rest of the group.

Jacen didn't even bother trying to sit up with nothing to lean against and laid flat on his back a short distance from the others, staring up at the moon. He was confident that he could stay awake, and his senses were attuned to his surroundings. Therefore, he heard the approach of his visitor as soon as he had gotten up from the grass to walk over.

Jacen didn't need to probe his visitor with the Force to learn his identity; his nose told him all he needed to know. "How are you holding up, Calin."

"Not so good," the Calamarian was honest. His voice sounded slurred as if he had to forcibly move his tongue through the syllables. "I'm not sure I can make it through another day. I've gone 62 hours without a soaking, and in the last 50 hours I have had a little more than two liters of water. I won't make it."

"I will find water," Jacen said firmly.

"I'm sure you will, but even if we stumble across it tomorrow noon, it might be too late for me."

Jacen got up from his lying position to look at his friend's condition. In the moon light Jacen could see Calin's skin glisten, and he was surprised as to the Mon Calamari's down cast feelings. By all appearances, the alien's skin looked as moist as ever. Jacen even saw a drip forming from Calin's elbow. The Jedi began to understand as he watched the drip form painstakingly slow and then create a string as it fell. It wasn't water.

"You humans are about 80 percent water. I am closer to 90 percent. A body full of moisture is important. It keeps the blood liquid and the digestive fluids flowing. It aids in the electro-chemical reactions of the nervous system and basically keeps all of the internal organs from rotting.

"Right now the inside of my skin is absorbing my bodily fluids, sucking them out the same way the outside of my skin normally brings water in. My blood is thickening, my reactions are slowing, it is becoming much harder for me to think clearly, and with each breath I dry my lungs more and more. I will suffer from a heart attack, or some other organ failure soon, maybe tonight."

"Is there anything I can do?" Jacen asked desperately.

"Not unless you can draw moisture from the air, and I mean a lot of it. If I live to see the dew in the morning, it will help, but only a little."

Jacen lay back down, thinking about how well his companion was taking this. "From your lack of complaints I thought you were in better condition. You should have spoken up about this sooner."

"What would you have done?" Calin asked pointedly. "Miraculously waved your arm and made the ravine start to flow? There is nothing you would have done except take more breaks. Breaks that would have, in essence, kept us from water longer. I did not tell you how bad I felt for I feared that it would influence your decision. You need to keep this group together and alive. With all of the individual concerns around you already, I was afraid that with one more thing to worry about, you would loose the big picture. You wouldn't have been able to see the forest for the trees."

Jacen chuckled despite the dire situation. "You know," he said, lying on his back, "I never understood that saying until now."

Calin chuckled back. "I'm not so sure I know what it means, it just sounded appropriate."

"Sleep tight friend, and may you dream of home."

Morning came much quicker on the high knoll than it had in the deep ravine. The last of the food rations were consumed in the morning, and Gertide actually passed around the remaining water she had saved. Everyone declined, wanting to give Calin their portion. When Calin too declined, Gertide ended up drinking the rest of it herself.

Jacen stared at the dried out Calamarian wondering what he was thinking, declining the drink. Another phrase popped into the Jedi's head: making beds on a sinking ship. Jacen had really hoped that Calin would give it a good fight before he gave in. The group leader was sure he could find water by the end of the day. If they could keep a steady pace of eight kilometers an hour going for 15 hours, they would cover 120 kilometers, which was plenty to get them to the foothills of the distant mountains. Jacen figured that they had probably already come over 50 kilometers into the grassland the previous night.

They day grew hot quickly. Jacen wasn't sure how he would make it in the heat, let alone how Calin would find a way. "Looks like we got a bad hand this deal, huh?" Torrick walked up beside him.

"This isn't a game, Torrick," Jacen responded sternly.

"Oh, come on, Jedi," the Gotal bit back, "we've been walking for three hours and I swear those mountains," he pointed due west, "are further away then when we started. They're playing games even if you're not."

"What about those mountains?" Cary walked up from behind the pair, pointing to the northwest.

Jacen blinked away a little dehydration dizziness and looked in the appropriate direction. The mountain peaks to the northwest looked to be only 60 kilometers away. When Jacen had first looked at the chain back at the foot of the first mountain, he had seen the distant peaks as a straight line. Now he saw that the chain was shaped more like an "L," the short leg of which was pointed at them from the northwest.

"We could get there in maybe seven or eight hours," Jacen said, judging their current pace.

The mood of the group shifted little as they changed course. Talking wasn't high on anyone's agenda right now. Even Cary was quiet, content to just walk next to Naorrmi without talking to her. Jacen studied the Foraean for a while. Besides Torrick and himself, she was definitely holding up the next best. Jacen even thought that she might outlast the Gotal given certain conditions.

The last place finisher was clear and unanimous. Torrick now walked beside Calin. The Calamarian's skin no longer glistened with body fluid, but looked like a hellish landscape from Tatooine. His skin was cracked and flaking off; his breaths were ragged and dry; his walk was barely more than a stumble. Both Jacen and Torrick offered to carry him, but Calin declined them, claiming that motion was the only thing keeping his thick blood flowing.

If Jacen had been disappointed last night at Calin's apparent resignation to die, he was doubly surprised at the amount of fight still left in him. Jacen now realized that his friend had not been giving up; he was just being realistic. He was going to die. And even if there was a river waiting in the next valley, it might take weeks, if ever, for the Calamarian to recover.

Step after step, hill after hill, hour after hour the six survivors continued on. Jacen now walked on the other side of Calin, both he and Torrick taking an arm of the weak Mon Calamari and willing him to walk. Jacen was concentrating immensely in the Force trying to fill his dying companion with coolness to fight the evaporating powers of the heat, but he knew it couldn't last.

"Jacen." The voice was quiet, yet urgent. Jacen looked up from his trance-like state to identify the speaker. "Jacen," Naorrmi said again in the same harsh, whispering tone, "we are being watched."

Jacen continued to support Calin, but paused to examine the change that had come over the Foraean. With the few clothes she had on, the physical changes were easy to notice. Even though they had had little food in the past three days, she seemed to be getting bigger. Her waist and legs were still thin, but where smooth skin had been now showed muscle tone. Also, three days away from a laser shaver had allowed a very thin layer of soft hair a chance to grow. It wasn't much at all really, but Jacen's keen vision could see the short hairs begin to stand on edge as she surveyed the landscape around them.

Torrick too was looking around, his head cones nearly tingling with awareness. "She is right."

Jacen began to examine the surroundings as well, gently easing Calin into the arms of the strong Gotal so he could better attack the task at hand. They were walking through a relatively flat, low section of the prairie that stretched out for at least two kilometers in every direction. The Jedi scanned the top of the grass, noticing slight rises and falls in the wavy ground. The golden sea moved rhythmically with the steady breeze that swept through the valley. Jacen was nearly hypnotized by the steady motion and almost missed the movement in the corner of his eye. His head spun half a degree to check the spot, when movement from where he had just been looking cocked his head back.

"The grass is alive," Cary said in abject horror, witnessing the ghosts that appeared to move through the field.

"Not quite," Jacen responded, catching longer and longer glimpses of the scattered movement.

"What is it?" Gertide asked, speaking for the first time since morning.

"Cats," Naorrmi said confidently.

Of course, Jacen scolded himself. That was why Naorrmi noticed them first. They must be lions, or perhaps golden leopards, though the latter was only a myth. "There are a dozen of them at least," Jacen said, looking all around them, cursing himself for being so tied up that he had allowed the group to be surrounded. Granted, he had been tied up trying to save a life, but in the meantime he had put five other lives, including his own, in jeopardy.

"What do they want?" Cary asked, disproving the notion that there was no such thing as a stupid question.

"Lunch," Naorrmi responded in a relaxed and unnerving voice.

"What are we going to do?" Gertide asked more to the point.

"Nothing right now," Jacen answered, "other than keep walking. We are not an offensively equipped group, and they are so spread out that attacking one would bring five at our backs. Right now we keep walking. They might just be concerned that we have wandered too close to their home." Jacen's words sounded a little comforting, but inwardly he agreed with Naorrmi, the undisputed cat expert.

The next kilometer was a very slow one. No one looked where they were going for more than a brief second, their eyes always to the side and to the rear for any type of surprise attack. Jacen, on the other hand, kept his eyes forward, letting his senses travel the hundred or so meter difference between the group and the nearest animal. The lions, for that is what Jacen had determined they were, did not move in at all, and as the group started up a gradual slope to leave the valley, Jacen thought that his earlier speech might prove true. Maybe the big cats were simply herding the six trespassers out of their valley.

As Jacen crested the rise leaving the valley, he knew he was wrong. Nestled in the valley bellow about 400 meters away was a large copse of trees. The rest of the group joined Jacen on the top of the rise and stared down at the oasis in the dessert of grass.

"I bet there is a water hole in there," Torrick spoke up, saying what everyone was thinking.

"Most definitely," Jacen replied, still not making a move for the trees.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Gertide asked.

"A reason to get killed," Naorrmi replied in a bluntness that was fast becoming expected from her during a tense situation.

"They forced us here, didn't they?" Torrick asked, thinking he knew the answer.

"Not exactly," Jacen replied. "They probably see us as no different than any other animal they hunt. Everything needs water to survive." Jacen got a muffled chuckle from Calin who was trying to see the copse of trees through his swollen eyes. "I'm sure the lions thought we knew water was there and simply wanted to make sure that was where we were heading. The trap won't be sprung until we are in the confines of the trees."

"But we need the water," Cary insisted.

"It's already taken," Naorrmi said coldly.

Jacen didn't reply. Yes they needed the water, but yes they would not be able to escape attack if they went into that copse with a dozen lions ready to pounce on them.

"I'll go in." The comment broke the silence and everyone was surprised by who said it. "I said I'll go in," Calin repeated.

"It's a trap," Jacen reiterated, thinking the dying Calamarian hadn't heard the earlier discussion.

"I'll die if I go in, and I'll die if I don't. This way I will be giving you a chance to escape."

"No way," Jacen said flatly. "We aren't going to throw you to the lions to save our skins."

"Don't be an idiot!" Everyone was surprised at the strength in the Mon Calamari's retort. "No one is throwing anyone anywhere. I am willingly sacrificing myself to save you. Don't insult me by saying that you'd rather die too! Everyone dies, Jedi, even you, but very few people do so knowing that they are saving the lives of their friends."

Silence existed after the last comment. "You can hide the group's presence with the Force, correct?" Calin asked, a measure of strength returning to him with his course laid out in front of him.

"To an extent," Jacen replied, "but nothing to fool hunting cats."

"You don't need to fool them, just keep them out of the know for a while. They'll see me enter the copse and think the rest of you are going to follow me or are already in the trees. Meanwhile, you skirt around the copse and head up that hill."

The valley was only the width of the trees, about 50 meters, and ended at a steep rise some 100 meters high which blocked off everything behind it. Jacen looked at the area beside the clump of trees and noticed the grass was much higher in the valley than anywhere else they'd been. The water hole must be fed by a large underground spring, he thought.

"Take my blaster," Torrick said, as he unholstered the weapon and handed it to Calin.

"Don't be foolish, you won't get it back and you might need it," Calin scolded.

"Don't you be foolish," the Gotal corrected. "If you die in the initial seconds of your encounter, it won't take the cats long to figure out you're alone and the rest of us have skipped. Then your sacrifice would be in vane, and the lions would come after us. Hold them off as long as you can. We will always remember you."

Jacen was still looking down on the scene trying to think of some other way. The copse of trees was off to the left, and the valley widened to the right. Most of the animals were now behind them or waiting in the fringes of the trees. It looked to Jacen like the cats normally operated by letting animals come up from the north and wider section of the valley. As the unsuspecting prey entered the trees in search of water, the lions would close around them, sealing them inside the copse. Because of this, the north, or right side of the valley where they were about to slink around the copse, was unguarded by the cats.

"May the Force be with you," Jacen replied, realizing that in order for this ruse to work, they had to move now. Every moment they waited made the lions hungrier and Calin weaker.

Jacen quickly guided the rest of the group away to the northwest, crouching low in the tall grass as they entered the valley bellow. "Don't look at him," Jacen instructed the group as he concentrated on blending his companions in with their surroundings. They scrambled across the valley floor quickly, doing as Jacen had said and keeping their eyes down so they didn't misstep.

The first sound of blaster fire made them pause momentarily. Jacen knew it was the beginning of the end for his friend, and was determined to not let his sacrifice go to waste. "We need to move faster," Jacen urged, nearly pushing Gertide up the opposite slope of the valley.

The blaster fire ended abruptly.

If the first few shots had given the group pause, the last shot made them run faster than they had ever moved before. Gertide and Cary cast glance after glance over there shoulder, constantly thinking there was a lion nipping at their heels, the big cat hungry and angry that it had been tricked out of a meal. Instead of the lion there came a Jedi, a Jedi that could have easily ran up and down this slope five times in the period it took the four other members of his group to climb it once. Still he stayed at the back, insisting on being the buffer if any lion should come after them.

When they were three quarters of the way up the slope, he felt them coming. He turned his head to look and was awed at the sight. The golden sheen of the lions' coats made them invisible in the grass, but like a shark swimming just below the surface of the water, a powerful wake of grass was visible behind each mighty predator. "Don't look back," Jacen screamed ahead of him, "just keep running." Though the sight of the invisible hunting cats was impressive, the part that made it terrifying was that there were almost two dozen of the grass wakes moving faster than the Jedi had thought possible.

Torrick was already at the top, with Naorrmi close behind, but Cary and Gertide were still a dozen meters from the top when the lions reached the base of the hill. Jacen looked up again and couldn't believe his eyes. The lions were closing fast, but the group of his remaining companions stood motionless at the top of the hill looking into the valley beyond, apparently ignoring the danger at their backs.

Jacen came up behind them and nearly fainted dead away. The sight was incredible. The northern peaks did indeed come much closer than did the western ones. The rocky out cropping rose like a shear cliff face only a kilometer away and tapered up and back to the west forming the first of the snowcapped peaks they had seen that morning. A majestic waterfall fell from the jagged edge at the foot of the mountain, filling a wide river that flowed due south and emptied into the largest lake any of the five had ever seen. The closest edge of the lake was probably still two and a half kilometers away, but it's size, disappearing into the southwest horizon, made it seem close enough to simply reach out and touch.

The fact that Calin had sacrificed his life this close to the largest water source imaginable ate away at Jacen's soul like molten steel through ice.

"Can someone define irony," Gertide said, obviously thinking of the same thing that Jacen was, only portraying it in a far more irreverent way.

Jacen didn't get an opportunity to tell her this. "They're on our heels!" Naorrmi screamed. Sure enough, one glance back showed several snarling faces not 20 meters back. The huge, billowing manes shrouded faces that seemed to be made exclusively of teeth.

"Hold hands!" Jacen yelled as he latched on to Naorrmi and Torrick. Cary grabbed onto Naorrmi and Torrick secured Gertide who was far too scared to do anything on her own. Jacen started off running down the hill, literally pulling the rest of his party with him. Jacen had chosen the Foraean and Gotal as his immediate anchors because he felt they were strong enough to secure the weaker remain pair. That strength was put to the test has the Jedi bolted down the hill, far faster than humanly possible.

Jaina and Jacen had perfected this routine when they were kids and just learning how to use the Force. He had never tried it with four other non-Force users, much less while being chased by lions. "Jump!" he shouted when he had built up enough speed and reached out to the Force.

Without really knowing why, each member of the group jumped on command and soon found themselves on their backs, sledding down the slope on the top of the grass as if it were snow. Jacen willed more speed into the descent, pulling his companions behind him and forming a sharp "V" coming down the side of the hill.

The lions were soon left far behind with the quintet's speed approaching 100 kilometers an hour. The valley floor began to level off and the river now loomed large in their path. Jacen had no way of stopping them in time short of releasing the Force cushion they were floating on and sending them tumbling to the ground, so he merely screamed, "Hold on!" as they shot over the bank of the river and splashed down hard into the slow current.

Jacen regained is orientation quickly, and swam over to where Gertide went under, thinking her to be in the most danger. Instead he found her treading water easily in the deep river, and it was Cary who didn't know how to swim. Naorrmi was helping him, though, and they all began to swim to the opposite bank.

The far bank had a sandy beach, and the grass that grew a few meters further on was much greener and shorter than what they had left behind. A few trees spotted the area between the bank of the river and the beginning of the rocky ascent to the mountains that towered above them. Jacen crawled slowly over to one and sat against it, breathing heavily.

Everyone made it out of the water safely, and Jacen watched as the lions on the opposite side of the river, still only half way down the slope, stopped their chase, judged the width of the 20-meter river for jumping, and turned back up the hill and out of sight.

An hour later everyone was relaxing near the waterfall. Jacen had caught two small woodland creatures that no one had cared to identify and was roasting them over a fire he had started. The tree coverage was pretty good here and the sun, still a couple of hours from disappearing behind the peaks above and behind them, was easy to escape from beneath the pines and evergreens. A few annuals grew around the area and were only beginning to blossom, giving the little corner of level ground between the river and mountain a very pleasant atmosphere.

The waterfall fell from a height of about five meters and hit a level slab of rock before spilling into the nearly stagnant river. Torrick had scaled the rock face beside the falls to see what the mountain slope looked like. He had reported that the falls seemed to be the collection of runoff from four of the seven visible peaks and the other three probably emptied into the lake toward the southwest, a direction he recommend they travel.

Jacen had already decided that they would float the lake southwest to see if they could find a pass where the southern and this western chain of mountains met. The pass would likely hold the runoff from the other peaks and would give a relatively safe passage through the mountains.

Torrick came over to sit next to Jacen after getting a drink from the river. Jacen looked around briefly for the other members of the group but only found Gertide resting comfortably on a bed of pine needles, enjoying the brief respite.

"Well we passed level one and most of us made it."

"What?" Jacen asked, a little surprised at the odd statement as he crumpled a few dried herbs he had found in the foothills onto the roasting meat.

"Level one," he said again, "we passed it. The boss at the end was a little challenging, but frankly I expected more."

Jacen still looked at him questioningly.

"Didn't you ever play any computer games when you were a kid?"

Jacen finally understood that the Gotal was trying to compare their situation with a game again. "I'm sorry, my youth was spent learning how to levitate rocks and talk to animals. My sister is the one who messed with computers, but she didn't play games, she programmed them, and this, my friend, is not one of them." Jacen ripped open one of the animals he was roasting to see if it was done yet. Another half-hour at least. "If you forgot," Jacen said, leaning back from the fire and resting against a tree, "A living, breathing Calamarian sacrificed himself to save our lives a couple hours ago."

"I don't mean to belittle his actions," the Gotal replied, a little perturbed that his Jedi friend thought him that shallow. "I will remember him till the day I die, but that doesn't change the situation we are in. Granted the stakes are higher in this game, but that's what makes it worth playing."

Jacen didn't want to have this conversation right now. Torrick respected this state of denial for now, but didn't want to lapse into silence just yet. "What do you think of that?"

Jacen had his eyes closed and hands behind his head, so he didn't see what the Gotal was pointing at. "What do I think of what?"

"That," Torrick repeated his previous gesture towards the waterfall.

Jacen shrugged his shoulders at first, not knowing what his large friend was getting at, but then he noticed something moving in the falling water. The sheet of melted snow was fast and thick, sending up a dense spray when it hit the rock slab below, but the water itself was crystal clear and Jacen could just make out some extra curricular movement inside the torrid descent. "What . . ." Jacen started.

"No," Torrick corrected, "who?"

Then Jacen saw the movements were human, or at least bipedal. Jacen looked to the side of the waterfall at a collection of large rocks that bordered the falls, noticed two small items on one of the rocks, and understood everything.

"What is she doing?" Torrick asked. "Taking a shower?"

"Hardly," Jacen replied, his eyes lingering briefly on Naorrmi's two piece sleeping attire lying on the rocks, before returning to the young female in the waterfall. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me," the Gotal replied, truly curious.

Jacen paused briefly, thinking that he now knew where he could find Cary. Sure enough, the little voyeur was back in the trees a ways, totally enthralled with the nudist in the falling water. "How much do you know about Foraeans?"

"Is that what she is?" Torrick asked with a chuckle, more than answering Jacen's question.

"I know a lot about other races, heck, I probably know more about Gotal's than you do. Foraeans live to be about 60 standard years. During the first 15 years they grow up, they mate for the next five, and then care for their offspring until they die. It's not a family oriented race, but they do take care of their children. During their third decade they reach their physical prime and take on whatever career they choose. I met Naorrmi back on the cruise liner the night it blew up, and she was with a few other older Foraeans whom I think were her mentors."

"What does this have to do with her taking her clothes off and dancing in the waterfall?"

"When I met her I thought she was a lot younger than she probably is, probably because she was with other Foraeans close to twice her age. I don't know if you noticed, but she is starting to fill out physically."

"And . . ." Torrick prompted, taking great pleasure in the embarrassment he could feel Jacen emitting.

"And, I think she's . . . well . . . the most straightforward way to say it is . . ." Jacen swallowed, "I think she's in heat."

Torrick laughed at the difficulty Jacen had in saying what he had already guessed. "So what are you doing here? You two should be off in the woods somewhere, right?"

Jacen tried to give the Gotal a stern look, but the huge grin on the furry face broke down the Jedi's facade. "For someone of her own species, it would simply be enough for potential mates to be present together at the right time. But with humans it gets to be a little more complicated than that."

"Love," Torrick muttered with feigned disgust.

Jacen let the comment slip by. "They, meaning Foraeans, have been around humans enough to know about the complications with regard to mating, and they have taken steps to try to adapt."

"She's trying to seduce you," the Gotal said, absolutely loving this conversation.

"The stories of the games Foraean females, and males for that matter, play to seduce humans are legendary. From an alien philanthropist's point of view, the adaptation is really quite amazing. No where else has an alien species adapted to an aspect of a culture that went against their own natural instinct and actually achieved greater prowess at the copied action than the culture's original members."

"Are you trying to tell me that Foraeans can make themselves more attractive to humans than your own kind can?"

"Have you ever heard of the myth of Sirens?" Jacen asked, pointing to the waterfall. "There you go?"

"Is it working?"

"You mean on me?" Jacen paused for a while, resuming his previous position, hands behind his head and eyes closed. "A month ago, maybe, but not now. Not after what I've been through." Jacen got up suddenly. "On the other hand, our little Siren over there might be attracting some unwanted attention." Jacen pointed with his eyes to where he had spied Cary earlier.

"How do you know she's not doing it for him in the first place?" Torrick asked, testing the cocky Jedi's confidence in his own sexual appeal.

"Or you, for that matter," Jacen added, not letting the attack on him take shape.

Torrick shut up for a few seconds, and took a long look at the waterfall display, second-guessing himself for a few short moments. He finally shook his stout head with a low chuckle. "Why bother? Why not just stick with your own race?"

"Because her choices are somewhat limited?"

"I don't mean her, I mean Foraeans in general. Why not just mate amongst themselves and avoid the hassle?"

"Because it's a game," Jacen said quickly. This shut Torrick up for a few moments. "Come on," Jacen offered a new perspective, "they have the opportunity of a life time. They have the ability to do what all other races have only dreamed of."

"Sleep with you?"

"Become more human," Jacen corrected the sarcastic response.

Torrick burst out laughing this time, doubling over at the pompous comment from the level faced human sitting next to him. "No thank-you," the Gotal finally managed to say. "I like my race just fine."

"And so you should," Jacen agreed, patting his friend on the back heartily. "Now why don't you go see if you can get our Siren, Voyeur, and Sleeping Beauty together. I think dinner is just about ready.

Thirty minutes later everyone was crowded around the fire, chewing hungrily at Jacen's masterpiece. "It is delicious," Cary said, voicing everyone's opinion, "when did you learn to cook over a fire?"

"About an hour ago," Jacen replied with a straight face. Everyone laughed at the joke, while Cary looked puzzled, not really understanding the response. He too started to laugh after a while, not so much because he got the joke, but because he felt out of place.

"What are we going to do tomorrow?" Naorrmi asked. She had come to the meal still dripping wet, her golden tan body glistening in the sunset. The knit pajamas she wore didn't fit well at all when they were wet. Well, if you looked at them from a clothes designer's perspective they didn't fit well, but if you chose the point of view of a warm blooded male, they couldn't have fit better.

Jacen tried not to look her directly in the eyes when he answered, knowing the look she must be giving him. "Tonight I plan on building a raft so we can take to the lake for the next few days. Torrick said there might be a pass in the mountain range southwest of here, and I think there might be a settlement on the other side of this mountain range."

"How would you know that?" Gertide asked, quite unsurprisingly. "You're only guessing there are people over there, right?"

"It's a very educated guess," Jacen replied, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "Mountain ranges are often near the coastline of a continent. Coastlines are where people settle in large quantities. We know there are no oceans directly east of this mountain range, so that leaves west. But yes, there is no way of me knowing for sure if there is a settlement on the other side of this mountain. On the same note, there was no way of me knowing there was water here in abundance, but it was a pretty good, educated guess."

Gertide shut up for a while, and the group continued eating in silence, tired from their hot day's trip across the plain and its adventurous ending. The sun was fully behind the mountains by the end of the meal, and the only light in the area came from the low burning fire. Gertide bid everyone a good night and went back to her pile of pine needles. Torrick too made himself scarce, not wanting to give Jacen a way to avoid a private confrontation with Naorrmi.

The confrontation wasn't entirely private, for Cary still wasn't ready to give up on the beautiful Foraean. "I'm still a little worried about the lions, Jacen," she said quietly as she walked over to the Jedi. "Could you stay with me tonight? I don't think I could make it out here so far from my home all alone." Her swagger alone could have defeated an army of the strongest men, but coupled with her soft, quivering voice, and her huge brown eyes, Jacen was reduced to a trembling pile of flesh.

The Jedi had no calming techniques for this situation. His tongue felt suddenly dry, his hands fluttering around his body as if he couldn't find a good place to put them. He tried to formulate the excuse he had thought of earlier, but he could only stutter out one word. "B-b-b-boat."

Cary, beautiful, glorious Cary came to his rescue. "Yea, didn't you say you were going to build a raft tonight so we could cross the lake tomorrow?"

Jacen nodded furiously, thanking Cary profusely in his mind. Naorrmi stopped her approach to Jacen, still three meters away, wondering if this excuse was going to hold under her pressure. Jacen looked at her and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Sorry, I'm busy tonight, and any male in my shoes would do the same thing. Building a raft is way more important and a far more desirable thing than spending a night with you."

Naorrmi gave Jacen one last pleading look, as if to respond by saying, "This is your last chance. Going once, going twice," she turned to look at Cary, "sold to the looser without a clue."

"Jacen's busy," Cary said slowly, watching Naorrmi's seductive approach, "but I can stay with you, uh, being that . . . not busy . . .is me . . . uh," words suddenly failed as Naorrmi walked up to him and placed a hand on his right shoulder. She continued past him on his left, letting her hand trail across his chest slowly, her fingernails-turned-claws making a light scratching sound on his shirt. Cary became like a statue as the Foraean slowly brought her face down to his neck and deeply smelled him. He was growing more uncomfortable by the second, feeling like he was a piece of meet in a food mart being inspected by a shopper. The analogy couldn't have been more accurate.

Jacen had a good idea what the result would be before Naorrmi made her decision. Cary looked like a scared, inexperienced kid whose mind had grown a lot faster than his body, but he came from good stock. His father was likely a very successful businessman with enough money to send his kid to Coruscant for an education. Cary would grow up to a powerful man just like his father. Even if he didn't, he carried those genes with him, and that was all Naorrmi really wanted.

The Foraean stopped her inspection suddenly and purred quietly into his ear, "Let's go."

As the couple walked off into the woods, Jacen whispered a small prayer for Cary's safety. "May the Force be with you."

The raft wasn't the greatest floatation device ever built, but it would definitely serve the five adventurers' needs. It consisted of ten pine logs, each four meters long and 30 centimeters in diameter. All of the logs had two four-centimeter holes burned into them with a lightsaber. When laid next to each other, all the holes lined up creating two small tunnels that spanned the width of the raft at either end. Jacen had inserted tall, young, thin saplings into the holes. The torn out roots kept the tie rods from going all the way through the holes, and once the flimsy tops of the saplings protruded from the other end of the raft, Jacen tied them together, securing all ten logs in place.

When Torrick, Gertide, Cary, and Naorrmi came up to him, Jacen was busy filling the space between each of the logs with mud to give the raft a level top. Torrick and Cary helped the Jedi and the task was over in a few minutes. Jacen gave Torrick a couple fish that he had caught and told the Gotal to go start a fire to cook breakfast. As Cary followed the new cook, he gave Naorrmi a long look. Jacen sighed heavily, watching the young man go. After last night, Cary would be rather difficult to control. Jacen took one look at Naorrmi and could hardly blame the youth.

While everyone else ate, Jacen continued to work on the raft. He walked over to the sandy beach next to the river and tried to find a good patch of dry sand. Concentrating very calmly, the Jedi initiated a small whirlwind over the beach. Slowly at first, but gaining speed as it went, the miniature cyclone began to vacuum up the soft, white powder and swirl it around in the air. When he felt he had gathered enough, he slowly worked the sandstorm over to the raft. With an unceremonious drop of his hands, Jacen ended the windstorm and let the sand fall on the raft. He spread the cushioning powder over a large portion, and decided it would be good enough.

The sun was rising fast in the east and it promised to be a hot day. Jacen watched his four companions coming toward the raft. Torrick hadn't changed since day one. He had gone without food and water for two days before last night and had carried his very heavy frame almost 200 kilometers, but he looked just as vibrant as he had when Jacen had met him crashing through the forest three days ago.

Gertide had not held up as well. She was old, but that accounted for little in a galaxy where medical technology had progressed so far that only the poor died from old age, and Gertide didn't look poor. Muscle atrophy and bone decay that normally cause death in aging humans had been considered a disease and had been cured. People with proper medical care could live well into their hundreds with little activity loss. Eventually one of the internal organs quit and death was attributed to heart failure, kidney failure, or any one of countless other problems that were inevitable over time. Gertide's body looked like it was holding up, but there were numerous afflictions she suffered from that had nothing to do with the physical body. Stress, anxiety, distress, and, above all, fear. For these diseases there was no cure.

The old woman had suffered a big loss when her husband had died on the cruise liner and had first simply been bitter. Then she was frightened about being alone out here in the wilderness. Even though five other people who would no doubt protect her had surrounded her, she didn't have the shoulder she was used to leaning against, so she felt alone. Now she was simply scared she wouldn't survive.

Naorrmi was holding up well, considering. Jacen could see a look in her eyes that told him last night had not fully quelled her desires and still wasn't satisfied with Jacen's refusal. As far as holding up physically, this little outing couldn't have come at a better time for the developing Foraean. Her legs had lost some of their former smooth appearance, and the muscles had started to take shape. Her arms were also becoming more sculpted. There was very little of her body that wasn't in some way becoming more defined or muscled. Of course, it was very easy to see this due to the fact that there was very little of her body that wasn't exposed.

This last thought brought Jacen's attention to Cary. The hop in his step and new confidence was obvious. The young man had obviously seen last night as a sort of graduation into manhood. He tried to walk as close to Naorrmi as possible, wanting to try and replace Jacen as her protector. Naorrmi paid very little attention to him other than politely returning his greetings or responding to his comments.

Something about this situation needed to be done. Jacen's instincts told him that there would be a time very soon when he would need Naorrmi to be able to act unhindered from her new "boyfriend." In a week, he could see that she would probably surpass the unarmed Gotal in physical prowess, and Jacen might need some help in fending off predators. If Cary still felt that the Foraean was his responsibility, or if this puppy love ever turned serious, he would be a hindrance.

The five adventurers stood next to the raft, which was bobbing gently in the river where Jacen had placed it. The sun had fully cleared the eastern mountains and promised to burn down unperturbed all day. Jacen paused in thought, briefly, coming across an idea. He quickly removed his shirt and tossed it to Naorrmi. "Here, put this on."

"What?" Naorrmi held the green shirt in one hand, examining it as if it were a foreign object.

Everyone had their own idea why Jacen was trying to clothe the scantily clad female, but the Jedi clarified himself soon enough. "The sun's going to be pretty strong today and you are going to roast if you don't cover your skin."

"I did okay yesterday," she argued.

"Yesterday there were clouds, and you still burned a little bit." Naorrmi's shoulders were indeed a light red.

The female still wasn't convinced and stared at Jacen. The Jedi had hoped he wouldn't get too much argument from Naorrmi on the subject and misunderstood her hesitance at first. After a few moments, he realized that she wasn't hesitating because she didn't want to where a shirt, but because she was staring at the well built Jedi without one.

Jacen knew what he looked like to women. He had heard his sister's friends back on Coruscant use the words "stacked," "ripped," and "chiseled" when talking about him swimming in the palace pool. It was a trade off, Jacen realized. By clothing Naorrmi, he could calm Cary's hormones, but he excited the already hot-wired Foraean.

Naorrmi slipped the shirt on quickly, easily fitting into the large covering as the bottom hem came down to just above the knees. Now it really looked like she was wearing night apparel, looking similar to Jaina when she borrowed her brother's shirts to sleep in. Naorrmi looked down at her legs, still mostly uncovered. "What about my legs?" she asked, that coy voice from last night coming through as she stared and Jacen's waist.

The Jedi blushed heavily, realizing that she wished for him to take off his pants also. "You'll manage," he choked out before quickly turning his back to the group and step onto the raft. Torrick laughed, Gertide threw up her hands and rolled her eyes, Naorrmi was admiring Jacen's powerful back and shoulders, while Cary was looking forlornly at his girlfriend's covered body, but all of them followed the Jedi onto the large raft. Jacen pushed them away from the bank, and they were soon floating gently down the river toward the lake.

The day became just as hot as Jacen had suspected. The river was slow moving, but Jacen prodded the raft along with the Force and got them into the lake in a matter of minutes. The lake was far vaster than any of the group had imagined. It stretched out to their right (west) several dozen kilometers, lapping at the base of a shear wall that rose over 20 meters into the air before continuing a more gentle rise into the mountains. The western border of the lake grew in width as the edge of the mountain range recessed to the south. Off to the east, the shore of the lake seemed constant, beginning almost 60 kilometers away from the base of the mountains. To the south, the lake stretched into the horizon, continuing for what had to be over two hundred kilometers.

Jacen was able to keep the raft moving parallel with the western shoreline, aimed at the envisioned mountain pass, but he was not able to obtain very good speed. The lake bottom was just tangible enough to push against, but the Jedi could only manage a speed of 5 kph.

The beach sand Jacen had covered the raft with acted as sufficient cushioning as four of the five travelers decided to try and rest before the sun rose to its zenith. The raft was easily large enough for all six to rest at comfortable distances from each other and still with room to spare. Jacen had placed a pile of firewood on one end of the raft, hoping to catch some fish during the day. The sand served two purposes; on it, Jacen hoped he would be able to build a fire without destroying the wooden raft.

The temperature reached 35 degrees Celsius by mid morning and the grumbling began.

"Couldn't you have constructed some shade on this thing?" Gertide asked, squinting over at Jacen. The lake was a crystal blue and shone with amazing brilliance.

Torrick grunted audibly at the comment. Jacen wasn't exactly sure if the ill tempered Gotal was angry with the woman or if the fur covered alien was agreeing with her. Jacen decided it was probably both as he looked up into the hot sun. Without his shirt on, the lake breeze cooled him slightly, but he would have to be careful not to get sunburn.

After two hours of suffering the heat, Naorrmi had decided she had had enough. She took off Jacen's shirt and promptly dove into the water. "Now that's the best idea I've seen all day," Cary replied to the action, but then realized he couldn't swim. He slowly removed his shirt and pants, standing on the edge of the raft in his undershorts before tentatively jumping into the water. He turned around in the air and grabbed onto the edge of the raft to keep him up in the water.

Naorrmi was swimming comfortably four meters away from the raft. Suddenly she stopped and began to tread water. "Jacen," she said calmly, "Jacen, we have a problem."

The Jedi looked over at her bobbing head, thinking she had a cramp, or her foot was caught in something. "It's the water," she said. "There's something wrong with it."

Jacen looked at her very confused. He bent over the side of the raft and cupped his hands full of water, bringing it to his face. He tasted the water and smelled it before opening his hands to release it back into the lake. "Salt," Jacen said slowly. "Salt, iron, calcium, and a hint of sulfur. We can't drink this water. There must be some kind of mineral depository under this lake or in the side of this mountain."

Gertide and Torrick looked at Jacen with disbelief. "What?!" Torrick screamed finally. All five of them had been drinking from their water containers liberally as the day had progressed, and most of them had very little left even though it was not yet noon. What was the sense in conserving water when you were floating on several billion gallons?

Jacen got up slowly - ever so slowly - fighting the anger that was welling up inside of him. He calmly went through a mind clearing exercise, wanting to rid his consciousness of the frustration that threatened to explode. The calming routine was cut short.

Huge furry hands spun around Jacen. "What have you done to us Jedi? Have you led us out onto this water dessert to die of thirst? Is this some sick irony that you are trying to work into the game? I really don't think that you're playing fair anymore."

"Fair?!" Jacen shrieked. "Fair? I'll give you fair. I think it's fair that we allowed Calin to feed himself to the lions when there was water right over the hill. I think it was fair that only six of us should have survived the cruise liner explosion. All the rest of the passengers died, and for what? A botched pirate attack. What a noble and fair death!

"Did you ever give pause, by the way," Jacen continued, shouting at the Gotal, "to explain how we did survive? You saw the pods around you ripped apart by the shock wave. Obviously our pods were stronger, right? All the other pods must have been defective, right? We should sue Galactic Cruise Line for stocking the ship with defective escape pods. You stupid goat! I saved you. If it wasn't for me we'd all have died a week ago in a split second as opposed to dying a slow and painful death out here."

"Jacen," Naorrmi was still in the water, though she had swam over to the raft and was holding on to the edge, "please . . ."

"What do you want us to do?" Torrick demanded. "Should we all fall prostrate before you and serve your almighty power? All hail Jacen, saver of many!"

"All I ask is that you respect my decisions, and not blame me for every inconvenience. Know that this is not a game. Know that I want everyone else to live just as much as I want to survive. Know that I can't perform miracles."

Everyone was quiet for a while. Jacen and Torrick stood eye to eye a meter apart. Naorrmi and Cary were in the water, looking up at the pair, stunned. Gertide was trying to ignore the scene from her reclined position on the far corner of the raft, though inwardly she was greatly disturbed. This sudden show of vulnerability from the Jedi gave her a shiver down her spine. She had felt that she was the next to go after Calin had died, but, despite her outward display, she had begun to gain a little hope from Jacen's confidence.

"I say we put to shore to find water," Torrick said, trying to assume command.

"No," Jacen replied, turning his back on the Gotal and looking up at the sun. "We ration our remaining water and stay on course for the pass. Putting to shore now will only delay our journey. If we can't find water it will only prolong the time until we can get some." Jacen paused, waiting to see if anyone would challenge his command. No one did. "In the meantime, I suggest you two get out of the water. Soaking in sulfur, no matter the concentration, isn't good for the skin. I'll try and erect some type of shading to get us through the day. I also suggest everyone go light on the water."

The rest of the day passed very slowly and quietly. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Jacen sat at the front of the raft, sitting cross-legged and quiet. His hands were in his lap and his eyes were closed. The other four members of the party stayed toward the rear, lost in their own thoughts and trying to think about being cool. Jacen had put some type of field around the raft that blurred the sunlight so no one received direct rays, but it was still hot.

Afternoon passed quickly into evening with the very small horizon to the west. Jacen had been sitting quietly at the front of the raft for over six hours before someone approached him. "We are kind of hungry." It was Gertide.

"I have no food," Jacen replied bluntly, not altering his position in the slightest.

Gertide was hovering behind the Jedi while the remaining party members ignored the encounter, lost in their own thoughts. "Can you get some?"

"I have been looking," Jacen said, stressing the second word to let her he hadn't given up all hope.

Gertide took a seat next to the statue of a man. "We need you, you know?" He didn't reply. "We all need you. What happened this morning can't happen again if you want to keep us together." Jacen opened his eyes and turned his head to look at the woman, seeing her in a different light. "Naorrmi, Cary, and I need you to remain solid. Torrick is to volatile to lead a band such as ours. We need a cool and level head to trust."

"Who are you and what have you done with Gertide?" Jacen asked, a twinge of a smile crossed his lips as he tried to keep a straight face.

The older woman frowned. "I know I've been a heel lately, but I'm scared. We are all scared. Well, maybe Naorrmi isn't scared. She's too infatuated with you to be scared."

Jacen sighed and rolled his eyes. Had everyone noticed it? "I know what you're saying, but it isn't easy. Everyone has different needs and there is so much internal turmoil that I don't think I can remain steady much longer."

"We need you to try is all."

The night passed far too quickly. Everyone except Jacen slept straight through, waking at sunrise, as if they had simply blinked through the night. The morning was eerie. The sun was not yet visible, but it lit up the sky in a soft glow. A thick fog hung over the entire lake like a grid of heavy bed sheets, limiting visibility to only a few meters. The idea that they were in the middle of an enormous lake was very hard to comprehend. It felt like the raft was in a small room with misty, white walls surrounding them. Only the gentle lapping of water against the side of the raft reminded them where they were.

Suddenly they hit something. Or something hit them.

"Wh-what was th-that?" Cary whispered, not wanting to break the ghostly atmosphere.

"I assume that it was some type of carnivorous fish. They are probably one and a half meters in length, about three quarters of a meter wide, and only a dozen or so centimeters thick. They're kind of shaped like a thumb, only much flatter. The front third of their body is all mouth, capable of opening to a ninety-degree angle. They have a double row of razor sharp teeth on both upper and lower jaws that number in excess of two hundred. They probably travel in a school of a dozen or so and are looking for breakfast."

Everyone was shocked into silence. "At least that's my guess." Jacen was still sitting at the front of the raft, appearing not to have moved a muscle since the previous night.

"Are you out of your mind!" Gertide screamed at the immobile Jedi. She leaped to her feet and stood in the middle of the raft, directly between Jacen and the other three passengers. "Is that what you call being level headed and supportive?"

"I suggest you sit down and shut up," Jacen said, not even bothering to look behind him, still staring hypnotically out over the water, his voice never rising above a loud whisper.

"I will not sit down, and I will not shut up. You will stop with this aloof gig you are playing at and come to join us. This is not the time for you to become all Jedi Master on us. There is no such creature as the one you described. I should know. I was a biologist for 45 years. Now pick your butt up, turn around, and tell us where we are and how much further we have to go."

Jacen's head popped up and spun around, a look of severe urgency on his face. "Sit down," he commanded in a very horse whisper.

Gertide didn't move. She was not going to let this young man go on like this. "Jacen you haven't had one real night's sleep in five days. You're exhausted, and your mind is playing tricks on you. This fog and your sleep deprivation are exciting your imagination far beyond normal. You need to sleep for a while. We will try to st-"

"They're coming," Jacen's face was one of utter concern. He was crouched like a nervous tree animal sensing a predator near. Cary, Naorrmi, and even Torrick grew very uneasy at the alert Jedi.

Gertide huffed again. "Be quiet. You aren't thinking stra-"

"Get down." His voice was calm, but there was an edge to it that told everyone he was not in slightest bit kidding.

"I will not get down because there is noth-"

The creature came out of the fog like a demon streaking out of the abyss. It was one and a half meters long and three quarters of a meter wide, flying through the air sideways. So quiet had it been when it had propelled itself from the water that everyone simply assumed that it had swooped down from the sky. Only its glistening wet scales and the fact that after it bit cleanly through Gertide's entire torso it splashed back into the water told the four observers that it had come from beneath them and not vis versa. So clean was the bite that Gertide's legs never moved as the area between them and her head simply vanished in the blink of an eye. Her head fell straight down, smacking her remaining intestines with a sickening thud. The grotesque spectacle of a head with legs stayed precariously balanced for what seemed like a century and then slowly toppled backwards. The head hit a bare part of the raft not covered with sand, bounced a few centimeters into the air, and rolled into the middle of the horrified trio at one end of the raft.

"No!" Jacen screamed. "It's me you want. She was nothing. Just an old woman." The Jedi leaped to his feet, moving to stand over the disembodied legs. Another fish jumped silently from the water. Its exit from the lake was imperceptible in the heavy fog, and none of the three observers saw a thing. Jacen didn't see it either, but reacted on instinct. His lightsabers were in his hands before the fish's entire body had even left the water. The nightmarish leap of the fish was identical to the scene that had taken place seconds ago. Its mouth was open wide on a direct course for the Jedi's waist.

Jacen's motions were too fast to follow. The movement of the lightsabers appeared only as an indistinguishable blue haze in the thick mist, and Naorrmi screamed as the jaws of the frightening fish surrounded the standing warrior. The great mouth encompassed its victim, but the fish found that the muscles required to close the jaw were no longer attached to the appropriate bones. In fact, none of the upper half of the fish was attached to its lower half. So quickly had the lightsabers cross-sectioned the creature that even as both of its halves passed by on either side of the Jedi, it had still not lost consciousness.

Another fish sensed the failure of its companion as the blood and gore of the halved creature hit the water, and it attempted from the opposite side. Jacen spun around quickly, reacting to the new enemy at his back. The fish desperately wanted to reverse its flight as it watched the two glowing blades create a blue wall directly in its path. So fast were the lightsabers, that not one speck of blood touched the bare chested Jedi as the attacking fish was turned to hash at Jacen's feet.

As another of the school's members met its unusual death, the like minded creatures attacked in pairs. Jacen went into a crouch, holding his weapons vertically at his sides. As the fish passed by over his head, each coming from an opposite direction, he rotated his torso and his blades struck the creatures in the side, separating their heads from their tails. The four halves were thrown to the raft by the force of the deathblows. They didn't stay there long, as the muscle spasms of the doomed pair flipped the pieces into the water so they could die in the place of their birth.

Four at once came this time, two across the narrow width and two others attempting the long flight over the rectangular raft. Jacen was a brief blur of motion and then stepped aside as he allowed the pieces, that if reassembled might look like four of the ferocious fish, collide with each other and land in the middle of the raft.

Jacen moved back to the center of the raft, straddling the gory pile. He was alert for further attacks, but none came. Jacen's pulse stayed hot as he slowly deactivated his weapons and attached them to his belt, still looking around into the fog, daring it to throw something else at him. When he was satisfied that there would be no more pathetic attempts on his life, he analyzed the new situation he was in. Before him sat three very scared and startled people. Directly in front of them, less than a meter from any of the three lay Gertide's head, her mouth still open in a state of shock.

A look of intense sorrow crossed the Jedi's face as he gently removed the head from the raft. He did likewise with the legs, taking care to remove the pants before placing the deceased woman into the lake. They would be going into the mountains within a day, and while Naorrmi would likely pale at the idea of wearing the old woman's pants now, she would be more reasonable with the temperature around ten degrees Celsius.

"Cary," Jacen said, trying to break the spell of shock that had been cast on the youth. "Why don't you help me with these fish. Maybe we could get a meal out of them."

"Th-th-they j-just t-t-tore her s-stomach out," he said, not moving a muscle other than what he needed to attempt speech. "J-j-ust tore it out, like it w-w-wasn't there."

"She died quickly," Jacen explained to try to calm the boy. "It was over in a fraction of a second. She felt no pain, and I'm sure she didn't see it coming."

"You did." Torrick's voice was flat and matter-of-fact.

"I tried to warn h-"

"You hardly tried at all," Torrick accused, relieving his shock through anger. "You knew the fish were coming, knew that she didn't believe you, and even knew the extent of their destructive capability, yet you just sat there and watched her get decapitated."

"I didn't know. I only thought-"

"Thought?" the Gotal scoffed. "You gave a pretty good description of the animal for only guessing. Truth is, you didn't really care about her did you? She only ever yelled at you, making life difficult for all of us. I can't say that any of us really liked her, but we would have at least tried to do something to help her if we thought her in danger. You just sat there and watched."

Jacen stared at the Gotal, wondering if the gruff accuser was finished. He wasn't. "Now you simply want to forget she ever existed and gorge yourself on her executioners, making her simply part of the food chain."

"They eat us; we eat them. I am merely being practical," Jacen said as calmly as he could manage. "She is dead. I did not react fast enough to save her. I can not dispute that, nor do I plan to dwell on it. I can not bring her back to life, nor can I travel back in time to try again. We have to move on. Life is over for Gertide, but it goes on for the rest of us. Would you have me mourn her death for a day and let us drift aimlessly across the lake, going another couple dozen hours without fresh water?"

No one said anything for a while, wondering if the conversation should be continued or if they should take Jacen's advice and move on. "Now, Cary, if you'll help me with these fish, we might be able to salvage some good out of this very unfortunate encounter."

Jacen ended up preparing breakfast by himself, a breakfast that no one really ate. Everyone merely tasted the fish, suddenly finding the stomachs that had been screaming for food yesterday were no longer hungry. Jacen tried to eat the tough meat, but soon he too gave up and simply continued his vigil at the front of the raft. Torrick had voiced his opinion that the attack of the fish gave further credence to his claim they should return to shore. Jacen flatly opposed to him, stating how it would take another day and a half to reach the mountain pass by land, while it was only about ten more hours by raft. The Gotal wanted to argue the point further, but Jacen gave him a look that frightened Torrick to his soul. The seasoned warrior had seen that look on Jacen's face as he had cut down the attacking fish only an hour ago and had no intention on testing his luck with the temperamental Jedi.

The morning sun quickly burned away the fog once it climbed over the distant eastern mountains and another day of hot sun and no water was in front of them. A small crack in the mountain range to the southwest was slowly becoming visible, and Jacen kept the raft on a straight course for the slot on the horizon. Naorrmi had said little since the horrific events of the morning. Cary was dealing with the events very poorly, and spent little to no time trying to woo the Foraean. With her spare time, she took a trip to the front of the raft to visit with the group's leader.

Jacen glanced up from his concentration briefly to look at his visitor. Naorrmi was wearing his shirt still, and looking better for it. Her arms and face were burnt from the sun, but her quickly growing hair kept the burn from being too severe. "You fought well this morning."

"Against who?" Jacen asked in all seriousness. "Torrick or the fish?"

"Don't be silly, Jacen," she spoke the comment with a lightness in her voice, but Jacen's face remained in stone.

"No one is being silly, not even remotely. This is a very serious game we are involved in here."

"What? You're starting to sound like Torrick with all of his game talk."

"Maybe he's right." Jacen turned to look at the young Foraean. "I examined those fish, you know. I've never seen anything like them before in my life, and I've had more than a passing experience with animals. They had two rows of razor sharp teeth, each with highly developed short-twitch muscles that allowed them to turn their mouths into vibroblades. That kind of biting efficiency is unheard of. Animals evolve due to their surroundings. Giraffes need to reach tall trees for food, so they grow long necks. Tripadores have to move quickly across the uneven terrain of Calimpoass, so they grow a fifth and sixth leg. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, out here that would force those fish to develop such an extreme ability. If someone was to go about and try to create the most devastating animal they could think of, they would probably come short of the creature that attacked us. It just doesn't make sense why something like that exists."

Jacen paused a while, looking into the distant mountains. "There's everything else too. Calin dying a kilometer from water. Gertide dying as she is disclaiming the existence of the very creature that killed her. Us being stuck in the middle of a lake while we die of thirst. Then there was the canyon back in the beginning that was dry when it is the middle of spring. The lions chose the perfect time to attack us, right at the end of our journey across the valley when we'd be the weakest.

"If this isn't a game, then it is very bad luck."

Naorrmi looked carefully at Jacen as he lapsed back into silence, his gaze distant. He was very different than he had been five days ago. When she had danced with him he had seemed vibrant and full of life. Now he was stoic. His face was covered with dark stubble making him look ten years older than he was. His shirt was off, but instead of his well-built body inspiring sexual emotions within her as it had before, it now looked like the body of a machine. A machine that had been in battle many times and knew how to handle itself. The problem now was that the machine had been left running for too long without proper maintenance. Always before Jacen had had someone to go to after battle. Whether it was family, friends, or other Jedi, every battle had a happy ending in which the problems were addressed and resolved. Out here, the battle didn't seem to have an end, much less a happy one.

The fog was all gone in an hour. Three hours later the sun reached its zenith. Another five hours after that, they entered the cove containing the entry to the mountain pass. A second river fed the lake at this southwest corner. The water trail consisted of swift rapids that bounced its way down the mountain and emptied directly into the lake.

The water near the end of the river was clean and fresh, and everyone took advantage of the available drinking water. Jacen managed to catch a couple fish in the fresh section of the lake, and the quartet ate a quiet meal. Everyone was glad that they were off the lake, but they couldn't help but notice that they had lost another member and tomorrow they would start up into the mountains, a trip that would likely prove more dangerous than either of their other two trips combined.

The journey up into the pass began easy. The mourning was thick with fog again, and it rolled down the pass like thick foam down a trough. The wet air kept the four travelers cool, while the bubbling rapids made all the noise the group needed. There was a series of short meter, or two-meter falls in the river that represented themselves on the bank of the river as steep rocky climbs. Most of the time they were climbable, but often the four companions had to go off to the side into the woods to find an adequate slope to ascend.

Jacen led the group, not because he wanted to instill the fact that he was still in charge, but merely because he could move the quickest. He could leap up any rise without problem and could determine if a rock formation was stable on a quick examination.

Naorrmi was close behind the Jedi. Her legs were fast becoming corded with steel, and her hands, a week from their last manicure, were developing very useful claws. Though she still wouldn't wear the pants that Jacen had salvaged from the grim incidence on the lake, she had tied them around her waist in case it got cold.

Cary was close behind Naorrmi, huffing and puffing less than half an hour into the climb. In between the sharp assents next to the falls, the slope was moderate, but the paces that Jacen, Naorrmi, and Torrick were capable of meant that Cary had to keep up or be left behind. Every new steep climb they came to, nearly brought the young, exhausted man to tears, but being directly behind Naorrmi gave him a nice vantage point from which to watch the beautiful Foraean climb the rocks. After each such viewing, he was renewed and quickly scampered up after his love.

Torrick chose the rear of the group. He did this for several reasons. Though he could easily keep pace with Naorrmi, he needed extra time to climb the rocks they came to. He out-weighed Jacen, the next heaviest member of the group, by 40 kilograms, and Jacen put very little of his weight on the potentially loose rocks, relying on the Force to get him up. In addition to his caution, the Gotal wanted to keep his distance from the Jedi. At first, six days ago, he had liked the young man, seeing him as strong and very capable. Now he thought that he was in over his head and not capable of providing the support that the rest of the group needed. Torrick would challenge the Jedi's decisions from here on out, hoping eventually to win over the other members of the group. For right now, he whole-heartedly agreed with the decision to proceed up the pass, so he hung to the back.

As the morning progressed and the fog dissipated, the group moved off the river a ways so that the trees could offer some shade. By noon, the group took its first large break. Sitting on large slabs of rock near the edge of the swift river, they could look back to the east and see how much ground they had covered. The pass ran in a very straight line heading west, southwest. Back to the east they watched as the river seemed to get narrower and narrower until it emptied into the lake. From their position, the mountain ranges that ran north to south cut off their view of the vast lake, and they could only see the small cove into which they had floated last night.

The high noon sun made the rapid river below them sparkle as it bounced down between the two large mountain ranges. The prairie they had crossed three days ago lay spread out below them, looking much smaller than it had when they had crossed it. Though the group had lost a third of its members during the trek, the paths they had crossed were really beautiful once you took the time to look at them.

"We should get going," Jacen said suddenly, at least half an hour too soon. Each member grumbled audibly, but they all picked themselves up, got one last drink from the cold river, and continued hiking up through the pass.

The top of the pass was not visible because the river, which had been straight thus far, made a slight turn to the north several kilometers up the pass. Because of this Jacen had no idea how long they would be climbing the mountain, and didn't really know what kind of pace to set. With all of the climbing, they couldn't make more than four kilometers an hour, and were still an hour's walk from the bend in the pass when evening rolled around.

Jacen could tell from the condition of his followers, that although he would have liked to get to the bend before camping, he should stop now. The evergreen density was very high just off the edge of the river and pine needles for beds were in high supply. Jacen went off to find some wood for a fire. They had climbed almost a kilometer above their previous campsite, and the thin air would not hold heat as well, thus it would get much colder this night than it had on any previous.

The meal of fish and a few small tree creatures that Jacen had caught went over better than the Jedi had expected. Everyone was obviously too hungry to complain about having fish again, and full stomachs made everyone tired. Well, almost everyone.

Jacen watched as Cary tried to lead Naorrmi off deeper into the woods. "But Jacen said it will get cold tonight," Jacen overheard the young man say.

"Then maybe we should stay near the fire," Naorrmi responded.

"But it might be more fun if we tried to keep each other warm."

"Fun?" Naorrmi actually sounded confused. "I think being assured of warmth is a lot more fun than risking the cold together."

"No," Cary responded, "you don't understand." The young man continued talking, but at the couples' distance from the fire, Jacen couldn't pick out the hushed words without tapping into his Force ability. Jacen didn't think he needed to though, having a good idea what the young man was proposing.

"What for?" Naorrmi replied to the hushed request.

"What do you mean what for?" the youth looked confused.

"What would be the purpose in having sex tonight?" she repeated the inquiry.

Cary cringed at the volume that she had used to say the "S" word, looking around at anyone that might be listening. Torrick was snoring loudly, and Jacen feigned sleep to protect the young man's modesty. "But what about the other night? I thought you liked me."

"I think you are a nice young man, but I have no need to sleep with you again. We were successful three nights ago." With that final comment, she left Cary, still quite perplexed, and went to lie down next to the fire. Cary just shrugged his shoulders and joined the rest of the group.

The next morning was just as cold as Jacen had predicted and then some. Naorrmi had woken during the night to put on the pants that were tied around her waist, glad that in the dark, the small amount of blood that was on them was hardly visible. Jacen had stayed up most of the night, only sleeping for brief periods at a time to make sure the fire stayed burning.

When everyone woke up, they immediately moved to crowd around the fire, trying to warm the parts of their bodies that had been facing away from the blaze during the night. Fog was once again in the air, but not nearly as thick as it had been at the lower altitudes. The thin air couldn't hold the moisture as well, but with the fog came a slight frost that had been absent from the previous encounters with the mist.

As the group started their journey, they noticed something else about the fog. Because it was not as thick as it had been the previous two mornings, the visibility was much better. This seemed like a good thing, but it turned out otherwise. Out on the lake there was nothing to see and at the base of the pass, the fog had been thick enough to prevent the group from seeing anything. Now, each of the trees and rock formations in their path obtained a certain eerie quality to them that made the party members' skin crawl. As a slight breeze made the fog density shift slightly, it not only sent a temperature-induced shiver down their spines, but also a visual one. The trees seemed to move in the fog, representing huge creatures with many arms and pointy-heads. Each rock formation seemed to have a face that changed expressions as the fog swirled around it. The river had seemed to have produced a consistent sound the previous day, but now the bubbling and churning took on a surreal quality, as if the sounds were no longer randomly produced, and the water was laughing cruelly at them.

Jacen noticed this effect on his companions, though he didn't appreciate the level to which they were spooked. He had been in many different such settings, both on Yavin IV and on other primitive environments, including a trip to Dagobah, and this was minor on his scale of creepiness. He could also feel life through the Force, and was sure that there were no creatures or spirits ready to pounce on them.

"S-something moved over there," Cary said just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Where? Where is it?" Torrick asked quickly. Jacen noticed that the first word out of the Gotal's mouth had been a bit shaky, and he tried to steady himself by making the question a full sentence.

"Over there," he pointed toward a cluster of rocks off in the trees and away from the river. The troupe had stopped now, with Jacen a dozen meters ahead of the main party. He looked back at the other three, grouped into a small cluster, peering into the woods.

"There's nothing there," Jacen said, his voice loud to try and dispel the chill that had passed over the group, but instead his words sounded insulting in comparison to the others' caution.

Torrick cast the Jedi a look that spoke volumes. "Well, if you don't think so," the look implied, "then obviously we are in complete safety, just like Calin and Gertide." Jacen decided not to say anything else and merely took a seat to watch the trio's encounter with the rock clump.

"I don't see anything," Torrick said, his voice having a much softer edge in response to Cary's fears than Jacen's had. The Gotal crept slowly toward the outcropping, the stone formation still mostly obscured by the early morning darkness and the translucent fog.

Then something happened that made Jacen take the encounter much more seriously. Naorrmi tensed. It wasn't an emotional tensing or even a fearful tightening of her muscles. It was much more primal. Jacen remembered seeing that response when they had run into the lions. Naorrmi had changed a lot physically since then and this sudden alertness was far more visible. Her short hair began to stand on edge and she bared her claws as she stepped in front of the defenseless human next to her.

Torrick was almost to the rocks when Jacen perceived something ever so slightly just a few meters ahead of the Gotal. The Jedi slowly stood from his rock with his hands hovering twitteringly above his lightsabers.

An animal leaped out at the Gotal, sending the heavy alien to the ground under the large body of fur. Torrick wrestled with the animal desperately as Jacen sprung into action. The trained Gotal warrior was stronger than the animal that was probably half his own weight, but Torrick was in an awkward position on his back, the canine maw of the animal snapping ever closer to his furry face and neck.

Torrick managed to roll the beast onto its back, but quickly realized that his back was now to the area where the beast had jumped, and if there were more of them . . . He quickly rolled back to his own back having locked his hands around the creature's neck.

Jacen ran up to the grappling pair and lashed out violently with his booted foot, connecting solidly with the attacking creature's ribs, breaking a few. The creature flew off the Gotal, landed a few meters away, and came up angrily to face its new attacker. Jacen nearly fainted when he saw the creature. It was a vornskr, a creature previously thought to have only been indigenous to Myrkr. They had canine maws filled with teeth and a whip-like tail capable of producing huge welts with poison capable of stunning their victims. Jacen also knew that these creatures were nocturnal, and for one to attack this late in the morning meant that it had had a bad hunting night and was likely very hungry.

The creature recognized Jacen as a Force user, for the Jedi was doing nothing to hide it, stretching his mind out to see if there were any others in the area. Vornskrs were pack hunters and to only see one simply meant that you hadn't looked hard enough yet. The beast didn't give Jacen enough time to find its friends and leaped into an attack. The animal was obviously reacting to Jacen's Force strength instinctually, for if the beast had actually met another Jedi before this encounter, it would have been a little more wary of the two apparently harmless cylinders hanging at it's prey's waist. A quick movement from Jacen, a snap-hiss from his lightsabers, and the vornskr was lying beheaded at his feet.

"'There's nothing there,'" Torrick mimicked Jacen's last verbal comment, taking the time to berate the Jedi, not realizing that the danger was likely not over. "If you ignore one of our instincts again, just because we're not Force sens-"

"Shhh," Jacen interrupted the Gotal harshly. The Jedi had the lightsaber he had just used in his hand, deactivated, and was looking into the fog in front of him. Though Torrick was growing to dislike Jacen immensely, he showed a lot more respect for the Jedi's caution than Jacen had just previously shown for Cary's.

The Jedi and Gotal looked intently into the trees, trying desperately to see past the misty veil, but not wanting to venture close enough to prompt another attack. "I don't sense anything," Torrick said after a few tense seconds.

"Neither did I," Jacen used the past tense to let the Gotal know that Jacen had indeed tried to check out Cary's claim earlier. "But I really don't want to believe that this was a rogue and put us all in danger."

"We could cross the river," Cary suggested.

Jacen nearly kicked himself. He might as well just turn the reins over to the kid. "Good idea," Jacen responded to the other human in the group, not turning around to look at him. "See if you guys can find an area to cross."

Torrick was hesitant to turn his back on the forest, but Jacen nodded to him and removed his other weapon from his belt. "If anything comes I'll hold them off. You see if you can get the others across the water safely." If the Gotal resented taking orders from Jacen, in this, a time of danger, he didn't show it.

There weren't many stepping stones across the deep, but narrow river, but a little ways up stream, where Jacen had sat to watch the initial encounter with the vornskr, there were a few large, submerged rocks. Torrick led Naorrmi and Cary into the freezing cold water, insisting that they all hold hands. The current was swift and rose up to Naorrmi's shoulders, but with the large rocks just down stream of them, they had something against which to brace themselves. The river was only 12 meters across, but it took a good minute for the trio to cross it.

Jacen was slowly working his way towards the point at which they crossed, always keeping an eye peering into the dissipating fog. Suddenly a scream from across the river yanked his attention away from his side of the river, and he spun to look across the rapids. That's when the attack came.

Cary had screamed when a vornskr jumped him just as soon as he had emerged from the water. His muscles were extremely stiff from wading through the melted snow, and he immediately cramped up when he tried to exert himself against the overpowering beast. Cary was flat on his back and waving his numb arms like clubs at the beast's head, trying to keep the eager teeth from diving and clamping onto his neck. The frantic efforts kept the animal's teeth away from his face, but he received massive cuts and bruises on his arms.

Naorrmi raced over to him and made a diving tackle into the bulk of the carnivore's body. Cary rolled with the pile for a meter before he was able to pull himself free of the mess. Naorrmi tucked herself into a small crouch as the furious canine reared up to face its feline foe. The hind legs of the beast exploded like corks, launching the drooling teeth towards Naorrmi's long neck. Instead of avoiding the collision, the quickly maturing Foraean warrior stepped into the attack swinging her right arm at the animal. Her claws dug deep into the thick neck of the beast, as their bodies collided heavily. Blood flowed freely from the wound and down Naorrmi's arm as she lay underneath the heavy animal. The vornskr immediately recognized its wound as a serious one and pushed itself away from the deadly young female. The move ripped Naorrmi's claws out of the animal's wound, tearing a huge gash in its neck. The vornskr now stood erect at the feet of its prone prey, but made no immediate moves against the Foraean, trying to see how badly it was hurt. Blood gushed from the wound and as the creature tried to flex its jaws, it found that several vital muscles were also torn. Naorrmi didn't wait for the animal to die on its own and propped herself up just enough to lash out with a clawed foot. The appendage raked across the vornskr's face, sending it to the ground in a heap - a heap from which it would never rise.

Jacen was attacked as soon as he turned his back on the woods. The heaviest beast yet landed solidly on his back, sending the Jedi sprawling forward. The animal's jaw made a mad dive for the Jedi's exposed neck, but Jacen recovered quickly, falling forward to his hands and springing over so the heavy weight on his back landed hard on the rocks by the river's edge. The animal was stunned badly as Jacen rolled off it. The Jedi had dropped his weapons during the maneuver, but both lightsabers sprang to his hands now, and he made short work of the animal at his feet.

Just as he made the killing blow, another, much smaller vornskr flew in high from his side, having leaped off a rock. Jacen didn't have an angle with which he could bring his weapons up to fend off the animal and just got his right arm up in time to keep the beast's teeth away from his throat. Instead of his jugular, the animal happily clamped down on the offered arm as both fighters tumbled from the rocky bank and into the flowing water.

The cold water shocked both of them, and Jacen found his arm free from the vise that had held it moments before. Vornskrs were apparently not very good swimmers, and Jacen was left alone as he swam for the other side.

There were more than just one of the vicious quadrupeds on the far side of the river and even before Naorrmi had dispatched her foe, two more of the vornskrs came out of the trees. Torrick was standing in front of Cary, trying to protect the weak young man whose arms were bleeding badly from his attack. The two animals leaped at the Gotal at once, confident in their numbers against the unarmed prey. Torrick accepted the fact that he was going to be hit, and swung a double fisted punch at one of his attackers. He connected solidly with the head of one beast just as the other one bowled him over.

The vornskr that received the punch, was groggy at first, but quickly smelled the blood of the prone Cary and moved in for the kill. A bright blue light suddenly flashed in between the vornskr and its prey, and the quadruped was reduced to three legs. Cary managed to look back over his shoulder at Jacen who was just now climbing out of the water, his other lightsaber ready in his hand.

When Cary turned back to his would be attacker, he saw Naorrmi grappling with it violently. She was standing and had the beast by its neck, throttling it while its two back legs tried to reach down for the ground and its lone front paw raked at the Foraean's arms. As one lucky strike made a vivid red line on the female's tan skin, previously unseen muscles rippled to life in Naorrmi's arms as she squeezed with all her might. In one last tremendous heave, she changed her grip slightly and slammed the animal into the ground like a wet towel. The sound of the animal's spine snapping was like a gun shot. The sound was closely followed by a splash as Torrick managed to throw his adversary into the water.

No new attackers presented themselves immediately, and Jacen took a quick stock of the group. Naorrmi was panting heavily and covered in blood, though he doubted any of the bright red fluid was her own. Her deep breaths were more from adrenaline than exhaustion and he felt she would be fine. Torrick had some blood matted into the fur on his shoulder, and a bad wound on his left arm, but it would take much more than that to slow the tough warrior. Cary was another story.

The young man had not faired well at all in his lone encounter with the vornskr and had sustained deep cuts on both his wrists and a nasty wound on the inside of his upper arm. One of the three wounds alone had the potential to bleed the man to death, but all three together spelled certain doom if they weren't treated.

A loud baying could be heard in the woods to the south, not 100 meters away. "Reinforcements," Jacen said grimly, realizing that he was going to have to make a huge choice.

"Why don't they just leave us alone?" Naorrmi complained.

Jacen was leaning over the wounded human, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. "It's me they want. Vornskrs have a primal hatred for all Force users. You two take Cary and run ahead. Try and get as far away from here as possible. I'll hold them off as long as I can."

"I can not carry the young man," Torrick said solemnly. Jacen looked at the big Gotal, realizing that the wound on his arm must have been worse than he thought. Naorrmi was strong enough for the task, but Cary was bigger than she was and there was no way she would be able to climb rocks while carrying him.

Common sense told Jacen to leave Cary. With his wounds as bad as they were, there was only about a 25 percent chance of surviving anyway, and that didn't factor in the blood he would loose during any potential flight. There was no way he could protect the injured man against a whole pack of vornskrs at once. Jacen wasn't even sure about his own survival in such an attack. If he carried the young man, and he could do so easily, he would be putting the whole group at risk for the Force hating animals would chase them for many kilometers before they gave up.

Common sense had no inkling what so ever - and didn't care really - that Jacen had already lost two companions during this nightmarish adventure and wasn't about to loose another. Having congealed blood in the wounds as best he could, Jacen gingerly picked up the barely conscious man. He put his lightsaber on his belt and called his thrown weapon back to him. With Cary limp over his shoulder, he turned to Torrick and Naorrmi. "Let's go."

As they ran up river, they could hear the baying behind them and occasionally the sound of animals crashing through the trees. When they came to the next steep assent, the two aliens slowed, but Jacen took the two-meter ledge in one, swift leap. The Jedi didn't wait for his companions to follow, but kept running at a quick pace. He knew why the vornskrs hadn't attacked yet. They were trying to herd their prey into a trap. If Jacen could spread their group out as much as possible that trap would be very hard to close. Plus, if the animals were only after Jacen, they would soon find that they couldn't keep pace with the speedy Jedi.

Jacen took another two-meter rise, and then a three-meter pile of rocks that was also five meters wide. When he landed from this latest jump, two vornskrs were waiting for him. The beasts looked surprised at the prey's sudden arrival and were curious as to why they had not been informed about his coming. Jacen realized that he had already stretched the trap too far to be effective. These two were obviously meant to be part of the final encircling maneuver, but Jacen had arrived before the other vornskrs were in place.

Regardless of their surprise, the two animals wasted little time in analyzing the situation and launched their attack. They were not stupid animals, as shown by their hunting technique, and they hit vital spots in their attack. One animal noticed Jacen's heavy load and the inevitable lack of mobility the load would cause and went for the legs. The other attacked high, right at Jacen's right shoulder where Cary was positioned.

Jacen's left hand swung his lightsaber into the flying attack, but didn't have enough leverage to cleave the animal, and only batted him aside. The low attack was very successful and knocked Jacen over. He quickly kicked the animal off his left leg before the vornskr could bite him and disentangled himself from his burden.

The animal that had launched itself at Jacen did not like the massive wound it had received from the glowing sword and was wary. Leaving that beast alone, Jacen attacked the other, skewering the vornskr through the chest as it tried to jump around Jacen and get to Cary. The animal had received a death blow, but it would still able to move for a while, and as it limped around the deadly Jedi, it made its way to Cary's limp leg. Jacen was still on the ground, and couldn't reach the injured animal. He threw his weapon at the dying creature, finishing the job.

Once Jacen relived himself of his weapon, the other vornskr saw his opportunity. The beast flung itself at his prone prey, hoping for a quick kill. He got one, only it wasn't quite as he planned. Jacen quickly retrieved his belted weapon and rolled back to face the expected attack. Using the momentum of his turn, Jacen did apply enough force into this swing and hacked off the creature's head.

Jacen quickly summoned his other weapon back and began to pick up Cary. The young man's wounds had reopened, but before Jacen could fix them, Torrick and Naorrmi came huffing over the ledge. Behind them came the baying of the death hounds, obviously signaling to the two animals that Jacen had just killed to attack. Getting no response from the dead vornskrs, the trails howled again.

"Come on," Jacen urged the two slower members of the group. "Now is our chance to escape."

The exhausted aliens rolled their eyes at the tireless Jedi, but sucked at more air and kept running. Only trace amounts of fog remained, though each one of the runners' exhalations produced a small white cloud of mist in the cool morning air. The vornskrs took a while to regroup behind the fleeing trio. They had taken a severe blow at the hands of these intruders, but weren't about to let a Jedi go without a further attempt. Though the animals continued the chase, many of them were tired. They had hunted all night and had not been successful, and now that day was fast approaching and the sun would be visible in an hour, they were neither enthusiastic nor optimistic about the chase.

Up ahead, Jacen saw the group's opportunity for escape. The river had a "Y" in it a hundred meters up stream. There were vornskrs on both sides of the river, but in the middle of the "Y" was an island that was only accessible if you crossed the water, something the vornskrs didn't like to do. The Jedi couldn't see if it was a true island, or if this was just the joining of two tributaries, but either way, they would be safe from their pursuers.

The island was long and slender, appearing to be no more than 30 meters wide at its widest. It was covered in trees save for a few rocky spots on the river's edge. Jacen ran over to the bank of the flowing water and, without explanation, jumped the ten-meter channel. Torrick and Naorrmi didn't need to have the logic explained to them, and only after a moment's hesitation, they followed through the icy water.

Jacen had Cary resting comfortably in the middle of the island (it was a true island, only about a hundred meters long) when Naorrmi and Torrick came walking up to Jacen, dripping wet. The two aliens plopped down next to the Jedi, thoroughly exhausted. Jacen paid them little attention. He was desperately trying to close the wounds that had opened during his tussle with the last two vornskrs. He needed to work as quickly as possible, not only because Cary's life depended on it, but if the vornskrs approached the river bank near the island and felt Jacen deep in the act of Force healing, they might be tempted to cross over and inspect the situation.

The Jedi got the wounds closed and managed to slip the young man into a deep coma just before the hunting animals wandered past the point where they had crossed the river. Naorrmi watched the half a dozen vornskrs from behind a thick tree as they slowly examined the spot where the prey's trail had simply vanished. Some of the beasts lifted their heads and looked toward the island, realizing that it was a possible route their quarry could have taken. They could have also crossed over the river completely. They could have even just slipped into the water momentarily to exit on the same side further upstream. This last possibility promised the smallest chance of any of the land-loving animals getting wet, and they continued their hunt moving slowly upstream.

Naorrmi walked back to the small clearing to report that the threat was over for now. "They'll keep looking for another 15 minutes maybe," Jacen reasoned, "then they need to rest. They are normally nocturnal animals."

"How bad is he?" Naorrmi asked, looking at the peaceful face of the young man she had saved.

"He'll live, though he lost a lot of blood. If I can work with him uninterrupted for two days, he'll probably be able to move on his own, but he won't be back to full strength for a long while."

"Two days," Torrick said gruffly. "We can't sit around for two days."

"Why not?" Jacen asked curiously.

"We need to keep moving," Torrick responded, not really answering the question. "We're so close that we can't stop now."

"Close to what?"

"The end of this infernal game. We've been through level after level, and now we are finally down to the grand finally. The weak members of our group have been removed, and it's up to us to finish this thing."

Jacen didn't respond, feeling that the crazy idea didn't deserve a response. The idea that the people who had died were merely tokens in a game was purely revolting to him. Lives had been lost, that was far more meaningful than any game Jacen could think of. "Is it still me," the Jedi finally asked.

"Is what still you?"

"Is it still me. Is it still my actions, my demeanor, my outlook on things that is making you think this is a game. I feel nothing but sadness at the loss of two and almost three of our companions. There is no sense of competition here at all."

"That is not true!" Torrick accused. "Do you remember what you said immediately after Gertide was killed? I'll remind you. 'It's me you want. She was nothing. Just an old woman.'" Torrick paused after repeating Jacen's words verbatim, letting them sink in. "Who were you talking to but a game master? An don't tell me you were talking to the fish, because I don't buy it."

"It was the heat of the moment," Jacen replied, confused by his former words. He had indeed said those things, and Torrick was right; he had not been talking to the fish. "Fate?" Jacen proposed as a possible target of his words, though even as he said it, he knew that it wasn't the case. A Jedi doesn't believe in fate. They can see the future, but only as a guide as to what could happen given certain circumstances, not necessarily what will happen.

Torrick didn't need to respond to the outlandish comment, knowing that the Jedi's mind was arguing against the statement far better than the Gotal ever could. Jacen threw aside the questions for now and concentrated on his patient, satisfied that the vornskrs wouldn't bother them for the rest of the day.

By noon Jacen had caught some more meat, and the three survivors ate heartily. Torrick had already decided he was leaving after this meal, with or without anyone else, he didn't care. He wasn't going to wait around for two days on this dinky little island. Jacen saved some uncooked meat for Cary, wanting to wait a few hours before he woke the young man to make sure that his wounds would stay closed.

After the meal, Torrick rose with a determined look on his face. "I appreciated your help thus far, Jedi," the simple fact that he had used Jacen's title as opposed to his name told the young man that he was lying, "but I am going on ahead." He turned to Naorrmi. "You are welcome to join me if you wish."

The Foraean looked at Jacen out of the corner of her eye, and he nodded. Torrick would fare much better if he had company, and Naorrmi was as good a company as he was apt to find anywhere. Torrick turned back to Jacen after Naorrmi agreed, a slight bit of triumph in his eyes, not knowing that his authority had still gone through the Jedi. "The first inhabitants that we meet on the other side of the mountain we will ask for help. If they don't have repulser technology, it might be a while before anything can make it up here, but we won't forget about either of you."

"May the Force be with you," Jacen responded, and without further comment, they left. Jacen sat and thought for a long while after they had left, wondering if he had done the right thing in letting them go off by themselves. So far in every encounter, he had played a pivotal role in the group's survival, but that didn't mean that those two wouldn't have made it anyway.

The lions would have been tricky, but Torrick had had a blaster at that point in time, and the big cats might have left Naorrmi alone, not wanting to eat one of their own. The fish were a unique case, and they wouldn't likely ever face anything like that again. Both of them had handled themselves well with the vornskrs, Naorrmi had even killed two of them. Of course every encounter had been totally unique, and there was no telling what the two aliens would face as they trekked up the pass.

Jacen tried not to think about them and instead began to roast the remaining meat for Cary. After twenty minutes preparation, Jacen woke his weak patient and prompted him to eat. Jacen had both of their water thermoses with him and Cary drank on of them in its entirety before starting on the meat.

"Try and eat as much as you can," Jacen told him. "You lost a lot of blood and your body is weak. I'm going to put you in a healing trance which will speed up your recovery immensely, but the trance works best if I don't have to wake you periodically for food. Plus your body will need the protein to produce more blood."

"Where are the others?" Cary asked in between mouthfuls. He really was hungry.

"They left?"

"Where'd they go? Are they looking for food or something?"

"No, they went on ahead. They didn't want to wait."

Cary seemed very hurt. "Both of them?"

"Torrick didn't want to wait and I suggested that Naorrmi go with him."

Cary chewed slowly, considering this. "Oh," he finally said.

"Do you love her?"

Cary nearly choked on his food. "Do you?" he responded with the same question once he got his composure.

"No I don't. Do you?" Jacen answered without hesitation.

"I'm not really sure," he responded carefully. "I've never really dated before. In fact four nights ago was the first time I, uh, . . ."

"I know what happened," Jacen said quickly, relieving the young man of the embarrassing moment. "Do you know anything about alien cultures?"

"I just graduated from Coruscant University with a degree in political science and inter-species government, but as far as other races' social cultures are concerned, I know very little."

"I only ask because I'm not sure that you and her view what happened four nights ago the same way."

"I think it was great," Cary said with a smile on his face. "I've never felt that alive before in my entire life. Have you ever . . ."

"That's not what we're talking about," Jacen quickly interrupted, not wanting to loose the subject at this pivotal moment in the conversation. "I'm sure she enjoyed it somewhat too, but she did not see it as the beginning as something bigger. She merely saw it as a means to an end."

"What kind of end are you looking for in a one night stand?" Cary asked, remembering vividly his rejection last night. "Does their culture require that you play with the emotions of other more relationship-based races?"

"You are overlooking something very basic, my young friend. In a culture where there is no family structure or relationship structure, why do you suppose members of that culture mate?"

Realization began to dawn on Cary's face like the sun in the morning. "Do you mean to tell me that . . ."

"Yes, I do. She is of mating age and wants to have children."

"So last night when she said that . . ."

Cary was too lost in his thoughts to complete any of them out loud. "When she said that three nights ago you had been successful, I believe that she was referring to conception." Jacen was quiet, letting the potential father take all this in. "Now, before you envision images of you rocking this young child to sleep, let me tell you that she won't let you anywhere near it, and after we get off this planet, you will never see her again."

Cary looked visibly hurt. "I don't know how I should feel about this. I mean I think I love her, but-"

"You don't love her," Jacen interrupted. "Trust me on this one, you have no idea what love is right now. You just had your first intimate experience with an exotic female who is far more exciting than any woman you have ever met before. Your emotions are run by your hormones right now, and they are all unanimously decided." Jacen paused in his lecture, wondering if he should exhume an emotional grave. "I lost someone about a month ago that I truly loved. It was the first time I had ever really loved anyone, though if you had asked me a week earlier if I had ever loved anyone I would have given you a list a kilometer long. Those earlier 'loves' weren't real though. They were similar to what you're going through. I had been emotionally excited and my hormones tricked my mind into thinking I was in love with someone. After what I went through with Ariela, though, I have no idea how I ever even thought that I had liked half of the girls on the list, much less loved them. What I experienced with Ariela went far beyond the physical, even made the physical unimportant. We were just so like minded and so perfect for each other, that we were incomplete as living entities without each other."

Jacen paused as he got the other water thermos for Cary, as he had finished eating for now. "I'm sure that you noticed that Naorrmi was hot after me before she went to you. If this whole adventure had happened five weeks ago, I would have beaten you to the punch so fast that you would have never known you had even missed something. I didn't though because I realized that while it would have been pleasurable, it would have simply been a direct insult to the true love I had discovered. After you eat Colnarium prime roast, eating a nerf burger when the former is available just doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure that I'll ever find the true love I lost again, but until I do, I'm not going go back to nerf."

Cary laid back, his stomach and mind full of things to work on. "I don't know if what I told you will make any difference in what happens once you leave here," Jacen kept on, "but I do want to let you know that you and Naorrmi have no future together. I don't want to spoil your short fling, but that's just the way it is. From what you told me, you haven't experienced Colnarium prime roast yet, so savor this nerf burger while it lasts, but realize that it's only a burger."

Cary smiled slowly. "Come on, Jacen, you've seen her. You know what she's capable of, and believe me," he grinned widely, "you don't know the half of it. She's at least a torian rib, barbecued even."

"Okay," Jacen laughed, "I'll give a barbecued torian rib, but that's still nothing close to what's out there if you look for it."

"Maybe not," Cary agreed, "but it will give me something nice to dream about when you put me in this healing trance."

Cary drank the rest of his water and positioned himself comfortably on his bed of pine needles. Jacen went over to him and calmly spent a full hour putting Cary deep into the most thorough healing trance the young Jedi had ever performed. He wanted to make sure that this bright young man would live to at least taste Colnarium prime roast.

The rest of the day held nothing important for the Jedi. Jacen didn't need to hunt for food for a while. Cary would be in his trance for 36 hours before Jacen woke him again for food, and in that time Jacen didn't need to eat either. He also thought it best that he didn't go spreading his scent around for the vornskrs to track back to this island. Instead, Jacen propped himself up against a tree and tried to put his mind at rest.

The troubles of the past week seemed enormous, but things were looking a little better now. The worst of the plagues seemed to be behind them now. Torrick had been right when he said that the "game" had eliminated the weak players leaving only the strong to go on. As callous a thought as that was, it was comforting to now that he no longer had to baby-sit every member in the group. Naorrmi and Torrick had left him and he now only had one concern.

Jacen didn't want to think about it though. He had spent a lot of time in the past six days thinking only about were he would find shade, water, food, or protection for the five, four, or, most recently, three lives put in his care. Right now he just wanted to clear his mind of all those problems and think about something totally random. Anakin had always been great with numbers ever since he was a kid, and he had told his big brother that when he wanted to clear his mind, he just tried to do complicated math in his head. The youngest Solo child had told Jacen that he would solve definite integration problems involving vectorial trigonometric functions. He would try to solve third roots of seven digit numbers. He told Jacen of how he would take his wrist chrono, take three random times from his stop watch, multiply them together and then see how many times he could square the result in a minute.

Jacen laughed at his feeble attempts at such calculations. He had ambitious set out to try to find third roots of four digit numbers, but it had taken him over half an hour to simply get two decimal places, and he had given up. Jacen was pleased that he had so easily started to think of something else, though that thought in and of itself made him remember what he was trying to forget.

The solitary young man tried a new tactic: Ariela. Ten hours later, Jacen noticed it had gotten dark on him. He smiled to himself as he prepared to sleep through his first night in a week, confident that he would have pleasant dreams.

The next day passed much the same way. Jacen drank some water, checked the progress of his patient, and simply sat around thinking. Late in the evening, Jacen woke Cary, happy that most of the color had returned to the youth's face. He stretched and began to get up. Jacen put his hand on Cary's shoulder. "Not just yet, have something to eat."

"But I feel great," Cary argued.

"Yes, and you'll feel faint and sick to your stomach if you start jumping around right now. You've replenished a lot of your lost blood, but your muscles are still stiff, and you will probably cramp up violently. Eat, drink, and I'm going to put you in another trance. I'll wake you tomorrow noon and then you can get up and walk around. If you feel good enough, we can hit the trail the next morning."

Cary tried to calm his enthusiasm about his rapid recovery, shrugged his shoulders as he sat up. "Any word from the others?"

"I told you that they left."

"I know, but I thought maybe they would come back or something. You know, if they found civilization."

"It hasn't even been two days since they left. I'm sure the nearest settlement is at least that far from here, if not more. If we get any news from them at all, I don't expect it for another two days at least."

Cary slumped in disappointment. He took the food Jacen gave him and began to eat. The meal was pretty quiet, both of the having said more than enough during the previous day's lunch. Once they were finished, Jacen put Cary back into a trance, and put himself to sleep, enjoying the dull existence after a week of excitement.

Jacen did indeed wake Cary at noon of the next day. The extra twelve hours of the trance had done wonders for the patient and he found he could even run without pain, though he became winded and dizzy quickly.

"Jump in the water," Jacen asked after Cary had taken a jog around island.

"But the water's freezing," the young man protested.

"Exactly. I can't think of a better way of testing your body's ability to pump your new blood through your circulatory than testing in extreme conditions."

Cary didn't like the idea, but complied with the Jedi's wishes. Jacen performed several other tests on his companion's stamina throughout the day, and was confident that after another nights rest in a moderate trance, Cary would be able to travel the next day.

The two of them were trading stories around the campfire during the night meal. Cary's family didn't quite compare with Jacen's but the Jedi listened to the anecdotes anyway. The pair was just about to call it a night when Jacen felt the approach of a pair of minds. He paused for a moment before telling Cary, not believing that Torrick and Naorrmi had returned, but a distant splash and, a minute later, the actual appearance of the pair, made the reality seem much more plausible.

Jacen didn't say anything for a long while, taking a good look at the two aliens' appearance. They didn't look injured, but they were staring intently at the leftover meat still roasting on the fire. Apparently they hadn't been as proficient at catching food as Jacen had been. "Would you care for something to eat?" he asked slowly.

"Only if you're done," Torrick responded, restraining his hunger as best he could. The proud scout obviously didn't want to admit how hungry he actually was.

Jacen watched the pair eat as he tried to figure out what they were doing here. They hadn't come back for a meal and if they had brought help they were certainly slow in saying so. Something had happened along the trail that had forced them to retreat. It must have been very sever to make Torrick come back to Jacen for help. Naorrmi had probably been the one to suggest it, giving the proud Gotal a valid excuse for coming back.

"I didn't expect to see you guys for a long time, if ever. What happened?" Jacen asked after they had eaten.

Naorrmi was the first to speak. "We reached the top of the pass, but couldn't proceed."

"There's something up there, Jedi," Torrick said slowly, Jacen hearing the fear in his voice, "something I don't even think you can handle."

Jacen waited patiently, letting the two tell their story at their own pace, but Cary grew impatient. "What was it?"

"I don't have a name for the creature," Torrick said, still searching for a way to tell the story without making it look like he ran away. "It was at least ten meters tall, though its body was probably much longer. The power the creature was emitting was incredible." The Gotal rubbed his head cones as if feeling the sensation all over again.

"It was like a cross between a snake, a bird, and a canine all rapped up around the soul of a demon," Naorrmi explained with a visible shiver descending her spine. "It had an intelligence in its eyes that I've never seen in any creature before, sentient or otherwise."

"It had four appendages, two incredible hind legs and short arms ending with the most destructive claws I've ever seen. Its maw was over-flowing with teeth with two large nostrils exhaling smoke whenever it breathed."

"Are you guys talking about a dragon?" Jacen asked, hesitant to mention the mythical beast.

The other three looked at Jacen, not recognizing the name. "I have no name for the monstrosity, other than the devil himself," Torrick said.

"Why don't you tell me exactly what happened."

"The top of the pass cuts deep into the two ranges," Naorrmi explained. "There are shear cliffs on either side of the 200-meter wide pass, one of which is blanketed by a water fall. The falls fill a moderately sized lake which drains into this river, and a similar one descending the other side of the range."

"We approached the clearing at the top of the pass containing the lake slowly," Torrick interrupted. "We both sensed the demon's presence long before we saw the lake. We paused at the edge of the clearing, still hidden by the trees and not wanting to rush into the potentially dangerous area."

"He came out from behind the falls," the Foraean picked up the tale. "There must be an extensive cave system behind the falling water to house such a beast. It looked like he was just waking up, but we both think that he was merely stretching to show off his size. Neither of us was visible, but the beast gave a quick glance in our direction and puffed a large portion of smoke from its nostrils before opening its wings and taking flight."

"The wingspan of the creature was simply incredible. Each of the leathery sails was networked with a complex bone structure that allowed the beast extraordinary coordination when flying. He took to flight and was out of sight in a matter of seconds."

"We were almost too stunned to react," Naorrmi remembered. "Our initial thoughts were to race across the clearing before it got back, and we broke from the trees." She paused and took a deep breath. "The sight of the demon sweeping back in from out of nowhere still haunts me. I was completely out of the trees and frozen in fear before the monstrosity."

"I thought she was dead," Torrick recounted. "It would have taken only a small bite from the dragon, as you called him, and she would have been gone. At the last second, the beast altered its flight path and snatched up a few trout that were jumping the last of the miniature falls upstream into the lake to mate as if that had been the creature's plan the whole while. It caught about eight fish, water steaming from the terrible mouth as it swooped up and perched gently on the top of the cliff opposite the falls."

"With the size of its mouth," Naorrmi said slowly, "it probably could have swallowed the snack whole, but it chewed very slowly, staring intently at me still standing frozen on the edge of the clearing. The moment probably only lasted a couple seconds, but the image of fish gore dripping from the thin lipped jaws while the to red eyes stared into my soul has been imprinted in my mind like it had lasted a century."

"After its snack," Torrick picked up for the shocked Foraean, "it swept back across the lake, landed briefly on the ledge of the waterfall, threw Naorrmi one last glance, and disappeared behind the water."

"We tried to find another way to get to the other side of the range," Naorrmi explained, her voice back to normal, "but nature had designed the landscape with only one way through. The peaks are steep and cold, much of the rocky assents still covered in ice and snow. With the thaw in full swing, avalanches and ice slides were more than a passing concern. Plus we saw the demon creature floating through the skies above us as we skirted the edge of the peaks, almost as if he was making sure we didn't try anything daring."

Jacen absorbed the tale, believing none of it was exaggerated. He knew dragons to be mythical creatures, having once existed during the dawn of civilization in the galaxy. There was ancient Jedi lore telling of a time when Force users befriended the sentient creatures, managing to coexist with them for a while. As the Force became understood to have two halves, Dark and Light, it became very evident which side the serpent demons were on. As cultures advanced in technology and weaponry, dragons were forced to retreat to mountain caves, sleeping out their long lives in relative peace.

"What do you suggest?" Jacen asked, fully knowing what he intended to do but not wanting to humble the Gotal back into servanthood so soon after his admitted retreat.

"I don't think the beast can be reasoned with, and I have no confidence that any confrontation we have with him, violent intentions or not, will allow all, if any, of us to walk away."

"You said there is no other way through the mountains," Jacen said. "How do you suggest we proceed?"

"We find another way. Even if it means traveling all the way back down this pass and following the mountains back east, I do not suggest we attempt to cross the clearing."

"What if I meet with the creature alone?"

The Gotal exploded into haughty laughter. "You stupid fool! You greatly over-estimate your abilities. You are not indestructible and if you meet with it you will be meat for it."

"What I know of these beings tells me that you can reason with them. They can speak, and have many ego-related deficiencies. I might be able to bargain with it to gain us safe passage. Or at least I will be able to discern its temperament through the Force to see if such bargaining is worth our time. What you are suggesting will keep us on the trail for at least another week. If my plan fails, it will only add another couple days, but if it succeeds, we might reach civilization in four days."

Feelings were mixed, but Jacen could tell they were going back up the pass. Jacen truly wanted to meet this legendary creature. Torrick wanted no part of it, but also wanted to see Jacen humbled and would be willing to lead the group back up the pass if meant Jacen would have to later admit that the Gotal had been right. Naorrmi looked like she still trusted Jacen's judgment even after her frightful experience with the creature. Whether she felt that Jacen could defeat the creature or if she believed his claim that he would be able reason with it, the Jedi couldn't tell. Cary really didn't have an opinion, but Jacen noticed that he was constantly staring at Naorrmi again. It was different look than it had been during the previous week. Before he had examined her body with an almost animal lust, now he looked at her with far more respect and found his eye affixed to her flat stomach more often than to her other shapelier features. Jacen still didn't know if the youth understood that though the child within Naorrmi was half his, he would have no real future with it, despite what he wanted.

Naorrmi and Torrick were tired from their trek up and down the pass, and slept soundly that night. Jacen put Cary into another trance designed to limber the dormant muscles for the journey tomorrow. With thoughts of his upcoming encounter ahead of him, Jacen didn't sleep much himself, and was very happy when the sun rose the next morning, announcing it was time to move off the island.

The morning was crisp and cool, giving Jacen a valid excuse for setting a swift pace. The Jedi let Torrick guide the group up the riverbank, accepting all suggestions for alternate ways up each of the steep climbs. The scenery around the group spoke enough through its splendor to account for all of the conversation during the trip. Though the trees had been exclusively evergreens at the lower altitudes, there had been all types of shrubs and bushes to diversify the landscape. Now the tall pines owned the forest exclusively, seeming to support the low cloud filled sky like huge pillars in a cathedral. The matrix of trees was almost hypnotizing, but the view that was laid out behind them was truly breath taking. With each meter they ascended, more and more of the landscape below became visible. Almost the entire lake could be seen from their height, save for the very edge at the base of the western range. The waterfall they had stayed at six days ago seemed like only a tiny trickle in the distance, and pathetically inadequate for filling the huge water basin below.

The day passed quickly and the top of the pass was visible before the sun went down for its nightly rest. Jacen stretched out with his senses but could not detect any such presence like the one Naorrmi and Torrick had described. It wasn't until noon of the next day that Jacen began to sense something extraordinary. It was a mind so complex that Jacen had a hard time believing it wasn't a town or even a large city full of people. The consciousness was large enough for a populace, but it had a very unified direction. If it was a town of people, then they all ate at the same time, they all slept at the same time, and they all sensed the four travelers coming up the side of the pass at the same time.

"This is far enough," Torrick said suddenly, sensing that he might have wandered a little too close to the mysterious guardian of the pass.

"It knows we're here," Jacen said, his eyes searching out its mind trying to organize the thousands of emotions floating through the Force from up ahead.

"True," Torrick responded, "but we'll be safe enough from its bulk if we stay in the dense forest. If you wish your meeting, you may go ahead alone."

Jacen nodded and proceeded, hoping no one would follow him. During the remaining 400 meters or so to the clearing, Jacen could feel the dragon trying to probe his mind, very curious at what kind of human could produce such a presence. Jacen couldn't sense any direct Force ability from the creature, but its mind was so advanced that it was in full communion with all of the energies around it. Most sentient life goes through rapid brain development through the early years of life, but then slows down after maturity is reached and actually begins to deteriorate with old age. This entity ahead of Jacen seemed to have not experienced any loss in brain development, or perhaps had not yet reached maturity, for as it analyzed Jacen's approach, its mind seemed to adjust and change. It allowed for a level of caution to creep into its psyche that normally wouldn't exist when dealing with a lone human.

If it was still maturing, that fact spoke volumes for the race's longevity, for Jacen guessed that the mind he was encountering had to be several centuries old at least. The clearing was just as Naorrmi and Torrick had described it. The lake was a shimmering crystal blue, reflecting the sky above, dotted occasionally with a puffy white cloud. The bare cliff face opposite the waterfall was striped with age and mineral deposits adding more color to the mostly blue and green surroundings. The lake lapped right up against the wall for the majority of its width. It appeared to be swelled full and might offer a small sliver of land between it and the cliff during the dry summer months.

The view was very beautiful, save for one blemish. The dragon squatted on the opposite bank of the lake, looking at Jacen with a gaze meant to terrify. Its eyes were huge red orbs that seemed to flicker as though a hot flame burned behind them. The large mouth was open just enough to give any observer a good idea of what kind of death lay beyond the tightly pressed lips, but not so far as to steal any sophistication from a surprisingly intelligent face. Smoke trickled slowly from the nostrils as reported, and the two pointed ears stood alert on top of the canine head outside of short horns. The wings of the giant beast were folded neatly on its back, looking very small and insignificant, but Jacen guessed that when opened, they would be able to offer shade to the better part of a smashball field. Its arms were folded unceremoniously between its huge hind legs as it sat unmoving. The tail of the thing was curled around to lie beside the creature, looking as big and powerful as a young hut.

"Who are you?" The voice had a very odd quality about it. It felt as if you didn't even need ears to hear it; almost as if your brained didn't just use the small bones in the ear to pick up the vibrations, but all 216 throughout the body. It also had the sensation that it was transmitted to you on a private channel, and if there had been someone standing next to you, they would not have heard it.

"Jacen Solo." The seasoned warrior was proud that he had been able to remove most of the quivering from his voice.

"Answer my question."

Jacen noticed something else about the creature this time. The first statement the dragon had made had been all vowel sounds and could be said without really moving the lips. This second statement involved far more lip movement and it looked very out of place on the very inhuman face. Aliens who were related to the animal kingdom, and possessed similar features to their insentient relatives, spoke basic with great difficulty. Through centuries of adaptation, the races had developed techniques for reproducing the sounds necessary to speak with the majority of the universe, but their mouths still looked awkward. The creature in front of Jacen spoke with such clarity and linguistic skill, that its mouth looked animated as it moved. The skill gave the hideous thing a very human quality that sent a deep shiver through Jacen's entire body.

So lost in the moment was Jacen, that he failed to respond immediately. "I care not for your name, Jacen Solo. Who are you?"

Never met a Jedi before, have you, Jacen thought privately. "I am a great warrior wishing for an audience with the most powerful creature I have ever seen."

"Great warrior," the dragon said, not really making the statement a question, but lending enough accent to it to show it wasn't fully believed. Still, the dragon took a second to analyze the man in front of him. He was shirtless and showed a very well sculpted muscular body. He was tall and stood with a calm confidence that spoke of formal training. All of these features paled next to the dragon's bulk. The creature went to all fours and leaned its long neck out over the lake. The reflected light from the lake sparkled off its clean scales, and even though the head was still over 75 meters from the small Jedi, it seemed to breath right in Jacen's face. "Who are you?"

The words were spoken for the third time with painful slowness, letting Jacen know that he would not have the luxury of hearing them again if he didn't tell the dragon what he wanted to hear. "I am a Jedi!" Jacen screamed, mimicking the same total vibration that the dragon used to communicate. In case the worm didn't know what that name meant, Jacen brought his arms across his chest and then threw them back wide at shoulder height, hurling two bursts of air at the opposing cliff walls. The air rush sounded like muffled thunder in the narrow pass, not overly impressive, but the dragon didn't even blink at the display as it recoiled its neck back over dry land.

"And," the winged serpent spoke with such deliberate slowness it pained Jacen, "what is a Jedi?"

"I am a Jedi," Jacen repeated, letting his defiance show the dragon that he wouldn't let the beast control the conversation totally, "and I have come to bargain for the lives of my companions."

The dragon exploded into motion. It wasn't the jagged movement of a strike, but rather the supreme coordination of a creature that had had the better part of half a millennia to become attuned with its body. It extended its hind legs, launching its tremendous bulk over the water. Jacen thought the creature would splash down three-fourths of the way across, but the demon extended its wings for a brief moment, flapped them once, and recoiled them to its back. The extra momentum landed the dragon gracefully on the near side of the lake, its body showing no strain from the effort and resumed its casual seated position only fifteen meters from where Jacen stood.

"And what do you have to bargain with?"

"Do you only speak in questions?"

The dragon reared its head up and Jacen feared an attack, but instead the huge creature burst out laughing. "I like you," it said, after a few smoky chuckles, "I will deeply regret having to eat you."

Jacen ignored the comment intended to make him loose his composure. "What is your name?" Jacen added a ton of mental suggestion toward the unprepared dragon.

Jacen watched as the creature almost spoke its name without thinking, but regained control just in time. A short flare of anger flickered behind the huge eyes, but its lips spread into a smile instead. "My name, oh great Jedi," it said, realizing that there was more to this man than he had originally guessed, "is Darcasterioninderpull, or at least that's some of it. Most people simply scream when they see me, and I've been content enough over the years to leave it at that."

"Well, Darcasterioninderpull," Jacen said with perfect pronunciation, "it seems that you claim some ownership of this pass and my companions and I wish to traverse it."

"Forget your companions for a moment, Jacen Solo. I want to talk to you. What is a Jedi?"

"I am a conduit for the life energy of everything that surrounds me."

Darcasterioninderpull paused at this very bold statement before throwing his head back in laughter again. "A conduit for all life energy, eh? Can you do this?" The dragon swiveled his head around on his neck and exhaled a stream of fire into the middle of the lake so intense, that the entire pass between the cliffs filled with an opaque wall of steam within seconds.

"No," Jacen responded after the display, "but I can do this." Without any physical motion to accompany his action, Jacen reached out to the enormous cloud of steam behind the dragon and collected it into a very tight sphere hovering in the middle of the lake. With the Force, he sucked the heat away from the steam through the top of the globe, letting the super hot vapor condense inside and gush back into the lake. The sphere of steam shrank quickly as Jacen pulled more and more heat from the water vapor, and within 20 seconds, the effect of Darcasterioninderpull's action was totally removed from the pass.

"Do you wish to fight me, Jedi?"

"I wish to pass with my companions safely thr-"

"Mention your companions not again!" Darcasterioninderpull screamed. "This encounter has nothing to do with them. A man of your importance does not come to face me, risking his life, for the sake of a goat, a cat, and a weak human. You wish to pit your powers against mine, if not in a physical battle, then one of wills or reason. There can be no other explanation for your presence, and I will accept no more statements denying this fact."

Jacen hung his head in mock defeat, pretending to surrender to Darcasterioninderpull's vast wisdom. Inwardly he was struggling with the idea that the clever worm might actually be right. "So what will we do?"

"I would kill you in a second, so a battle of strength seems ludicrous. My intellect is so far beyond yours or even the greatest human to ever live that a battle of reason would simply be a waste of time. I have lived for 473 years and have endured more than you could believe possible, so if you want to engage in a battle of wills, be my guest."

"You are trying to provoke me to anger," Jacen said truthfully, sensing the dragon's intent. "It won't work. Also, the fact that you wish to anger me into battle declares that you don't truly believe you will crush me in the initial seconds of such a battle else you wouldn't want to fight one so desperately."

Darcasterioninderpull had been trying to anger Jacen, but the observant Jedi's words instead drove the dragon to rage. "I did not say I would kill you in the initial seconds, but in the very first one and maybe not even that long! If you wish for proof of this claim make your move, oh great conduit of all life energy."

Jacen didn't respond, but just stood placidly in front of the angry beast, stealing the tension from the moment and making Darcasterioninderpull's reaction seem out of place. The dragon stared at the puny human in front of him, infuriated that he was unable to disturb the Jedi. "Bring out your companions," Darcasterioninderpull said finally, giving into Jacen's original claim. "Bring them out so I can see them and deem them unworthy to pass through my home."

"They will not show themselves until you promise to spare their lives."

"Your existence is already forfeit, Jedi! What do you care for their insignificant lives?!"

"Promise that they will come to no harm or I will leave now and rob you of your predicted victory."

Darcasterioninderpull laughed again at Jacen's boast. "Bring them out and I promise they will only suffer what you bring upon them."

Jacen mentally connected to Torrick and told him to come into the clearing. A minute later Naorrmi, Cary, and Torrick were standing on the edge of the clearing a few meters apart from each other and several behind Jacen.

"Is it true that you wish to pass by this area safely and then be on your way?" Darcasterioninderpull spoke over Jacen's head to the trio at the edge of the clearing.

"That is correct," Torrick managed a solid voice.

"Then why did you wait till now? You were here three days ago and had the opportunity to cross this lake then. Why did you not ask me for permission? Surely you had done me no wrong and I had no reason to deny you passage." Torrick didn't respond right away. "Answer me, Gotal! Why did you wait until this Jedi could stand before you? Do you not come from a more honorable race than he does? Are you not more qualified to come before me than this short-lived human is? You are a shameful creature and not worth the grass I allow you to stand on."

"I . . ., we," Torrick started, and realized he should have just remained quiet.

"They are weak, Jedi," Darcasterioninderpull was talking to Jacen again. "Strong people should not encumber themselves with weaklings needlessly, it will only slow you down. You could have climbed the mountain without using this pass, but because you insist on caring for these puny beings behind you, you endanger yourself. And now you and your friends shall pay the price."

"You promised," Jacen said quietly, but had mastered the technique of projecting his voice into the very being of the dragon, and Darcasterioninderpull took pause. The huge creature had already inhaled deeply, ready to drench the company in fire, but now swallowed his breath at the gall of the Jedi.

"A being is only as good as his word. Is that it Jedi? If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? And if Darcasterioninderpull breaks his promise to a foe, who will be left standing to judge him for it?"

"I will." The boast was said with such utter calm and determination that it almost over-shadowed the enormity of the claim. Darcasterioninderpull almost believed it.

All of the lore on the mythical dragon said that they were a very proud race, and right they should be. But most of the race's members were so proud that it was possible to blind them with it to such an extent that they could no longer reason well. Out-smarting a dragon involved complimenting it to such an extent, that it lost all connection with reality and eventually attempted a feat too fantastic for even its vast abilities, allowing the other party to escape in the confusion. At no place in any lore did it suggest that you try to intimidate a dragon.

Darcasterioninderpull looked long and hard at Jacen. The man seemed to be unarmed, with several cylinders hanging from his belt. The dragon judged them all to be water or food carrying containers, though two of them seemed too long and slender to carry anything of substance. Weapons were never much of a concern to the dragon anyway. Its scales were nearly impenetrable and no attacker had ever gotten more than two shots off before he was roasted, toasted, and consumed.

Jacen's other powers were, as of yet, untested in the dragon's presence, but the worm didn't feel too threatened by someone who could control air or steam. Still, a battle with the defiant man intrigued the ancient creature. The attempts at drawing Jacen into battle thus far had failed, but Darcasterioninderpull was ready to try a new tactic.

"You will," the dragon said slowly, visibly pondering the words. "You will. In that case I should agree to the terms which you have laid before me. You wish to bargain with me, then bargain."

Jacen was sick of talk. He had come up this way to meet a dragon in person and he was disgusted with what he had found. Any report of the creatures' vanity was so understated, that is was almost better left unsaid. Darcasterioninderpull thought he was a god and could do with life what he wanted. Other sentients were just entertainment to him, with no feelings or emotions to be concerned about. There wasn't even the question of right or wrong with this creature. The idea that there could be some sort of standard apart from the dragon's will was simply ignored.

"No, I will not bargain," Jacen said in the same quiet voice he had used earlier. "You will simply step aside and we will cross the lake that belongs to me as much as it does you. You will not ALLOW us to do so, because it is not in your power to distribute such privileges. Four members of this universe who are just as important as you are, maybe more so, are not to be domineered over by a presumptuous, would-be god, but will act on their own free will without having to worry about stepping on the ground claimed by an egotistical worm."

Darcasterioninderpull expected everything save the Jedi's composure. He knew that Jacen didn't fear him, or at least wasn't going to show it, but this ability to control anger was so new to the harvester of fear, that it shocked Darcasterioninderpull deeply.

"A tax then," the dragon responded, pretending as if it hadn't just been put in its place. "A tax that will allow me to keep this pass in good condition so the next batch of weary travelers will be able have an easier go at it."

Jacen was thinking quickly, trying to figure out what the beast was playing at. They had no objects of value on them, and Darcasterioninderpull had to be able to see that. Dragon's were reported to collect treasures. Would the creature send them back to return with gold?

"You do know what the only certain things in life are?" Darcasterioninderpull paused before acting, giving Jacen just enough time to remember the phrase but not enough time to act. "It's just rare that the two are combined into one." With that last comment, Darcasterioninderpull loosed a vivid burst of flame directly at Naorrmi.

Jacen had just realized what was happening as the fireball flew over his shoulder. He spun around to get his bearings, but already knew he would be too late again. Torrick was standing furthest from the Foraean and was still too angry at the dragon for insulting him to think straight. Only Cary acted fast enough.

The young man had developed a new type of affection for Naorrmi and the life she carried inside her. All his life he had played the part of the fool, maturing late and never excelling at anything save academics. Now as the woman he thought he loved and a child he would never know were faced with certain death, he leaped into action. He raced the fireball to the frozen Foraean, a race he had no right to win. He reached his love in a desperate lunge absorbing the full brunt of the fireball in the back and neck.

Jacen ran to the pair and pulled Cary's smoking body from the pile of arms and legs. One quick look told the Jedi that Naorrmi would be okay. Her short body hair that had been growing was all singed away, but no major burns were visible. Cary, on the other hand, was busy drawing his last seven breaths. Jacen held him in his lap, concentrating on reducing the young man's pain as he faded away.

"The torian rib was good, but I would have liked to taste some Colnarium prime roast," the dying man said with a weak grin.

"Trust me," Jacen said, choking up, "you just ate more Colnarium prime roast in your last ten seconds than most people get in a life time."

"I wou-" Cary started, but he was gone.

Jacen gently laid the dead young man down to the ground and stood up with deathly slowness, his back still to the murderer.

"Death and taxes," Darcasterioninderpull said jovially, not sure if he was happier with his pun or with the fact that he had finally angered the Jedi beyond his ability to control. "Now who is going to hold me to my word?"

Jacen turned around, mimicking the slow deliberateness that Darcasterioninderpull had used to perfection early on in the encounter. "I will."

The dragon stared deep into the Jedi's eyes, its own red orbs attempting to burn its will into the young man's soul. Darcasterioninderpull had killed a dozen strong men in the past few decades by scaring them so deeply that their heart had simply stopped in shock. The idea of scaring someone to death was not just a figure of speech to the powerful beast, but as Darcasterioninderpull looked into Jacen's mind's eye, the effect was reversed.

Off in the distant horizon, clouds that had recently been fluffy white pouches of water crystals and dust slowly turned into dark blotches of high pressure threatening a vicious storm. The wind in the narrow pass picked up slightly, making the cool afternoon seem almost cold. The lake behind the dragon began to move; its crystal blue slowly turning to an angry green as the contents began to churn.

Darcasterioninderpull was frightened.

The feeling didn't last long, but it lasted long enough to enrage the dragon into the first attack. A stream of fire more intense than any he had unleashed in his previous 473 years of existence was belched at the Jedi. Jacen had known he was going to face a dragon for over a day and a half and had mentally prepared himself with a defensive measure he could summon when ready. He was ready now.

The Jedi erected a sharp air funnel between him and the stream of fire. The funnel's axis lay along the path of the attack and flung oxygen from the flame, extinguishing it quickly, so only a warm gust of air passed over Jacen.

Darcasterioninderpull charged in after the fire attack, swinging his powerful tail at the stationary foe. Jacen leaped high in the air and toward the dragon. The ancient creature had thin arms, but its four fingered hands were corded with muscle and one of them shot out to grab at the floating man. The hand was easily half as big as Jacen, with claws half a meter in length. The Jedi drew his lightsabers and became a whirling ball of motion as the twin blue blades struck each claw six times in less than a second, actually opening the hand wider as the dragon tried to close it around the Jedi.

The other hand snapped out beneath Jacen, hoping to snag him by his legs as he fell, but the Jedi warrior used the Force to carry him higher toward the maw of the dragon. Jacen's lightsabers picked painfully at the facial scales, before the flying attacker propelled himself away from the dangerous face just as another stream of fire cleared the area.

Jacen hit the ground rolling and came up fast, facing the furious dragon. Darcasterioninderpull wasted no time and half dove, half flew at the grounded Jedi. Again Jacen leaped into the air to avoid the attack, but Darcasterioninderpull was ready this time. The dragon's wings opened quickly and the beast went into a sharp climb, putting Jacen right in line with its deadly jaws. The Jedi desperately funneled more energy into his jump, flipping him just out of range of the mouth and up and over the head of the great beast. He landed on the back of the flying dragon and began to slash and cut with his weapons.

Darcasterioninderpull flew high into the air, making sure that when he bucked Jacen, the Jedi would have a long fall below him. The storm clouds that had been on the horizon a few moments ago were quickly covering the top of the mountain pass in darkness, and the winds were tricky to navigate. Despite Darcasterioninderpull's drastic maneuvers and the wind's shear force, Jacen held on, dispensing cold wrath upon the dragon's well armored back.

The clever worm decided to try a new tactic and flew back down towards the cliff wall with the waterfall. Darcasterioninderpull drenched his back under the torrid falls, desperately trying to rip the harmful human off his back. Still not successful, the dragon slammed its back against the rock wall just next to the falls. Jacen saw the move coming and leaped from the back, running up the cliff wall as if it were horizontal instead of vertical.

The collision with the wall interrupted Darcasterioninderpull's flight, but it did little more than stun the strong creature. It sensed that Jacen had scaled the wall and looped around for another attack. Jacen fought against the cold wind high on the cliff top as he made his way over to the top of the waterfall. Darcasterioninderpull was just a speck in the distance as he turned around to make a powerful pass on the Jedi's position. Jacen concentrated on the falls, feeling the pull gravity had on the descending liquid, and at just the right time, relieved the river from the natural phenomenon.

Darcasterioninderpull had closed on the cliff far quicker than normal speeds should have allowed and was in the process of filling his lungs with air for the torrential fire display he planed to reek on the Jedi, when the river suddenly began to fly out into space as if there were some invisible bed extending out towards the dragon. Ice cold water poured into the dragon's wide open mouth and flowed down into its fire cavity, quenching any attack that had been forth coming and momentarily suffocating the beast.

The streaking arrow of scales that had been aimed directly at Jacen lost altitude suddenly and crashed headfirst into the cliff wall beneath the Jedi. As Darcasterioninderpull fell down toward the lake, the fire demon exhaled an intense geyser of steam that flew high into the air, blasting Jacen away from the edge of the cliff. The stunned fighter picked himself up, ran over to the edge of the cliff, and dove into the lake after his enemy, knowing that the powerful beast was merely down, but not out.

Darcasterioninderpull was severely disoriented as he hit the surface of the deep lake, and was still trying to get his breath back as more icy, cold water closed in over him. Dragons, unlike all other reptiles, are not cold-blooded. They aren't even warm-blooded. They are hot-blooded. Their scales and thick hide protect them from the coldest temperatures imaginable, but if cold water should get past those protective barriers, death could result very quickly. Darcasterioninderpull knew this and concentrated on not swallowing any more water as he oriented himself in the lake.

The dragon had plans to calm his rage before he burst back out of the water in search of Jacen, but unknown to the serpent, the blood thirsty Jedi had followed the beast into the water. The first sign Darcasterioninderpull received telling him Jacen hadn't allowed him any respite was stinging pain from his vulnerable underbelly. A quick look down through the murky water showed Jacen with two glowing swords. They vaporized the water around their luminous blades while slashing deep wounds into the dragon's chest. The vicious cuts also boiled the water on contact, sending large pockets of steam to the lake's surface.

Darcasterioninderpull tried to claw at the painful annoyance, but the creature's fading body heat, and the thick, cold water made the movements very lethargic. Jacen, on the other hand, did not let the water slow him down, and used the Force to move him about as if he were on land. He easily avoided the claws and inflicted more wounds on the arms as they passed. Darcasterioninderpull pulled his injured appendages back and decided he had had enough of this underwater battle and used his hind legs and powerful tail to send him back through the turbulent lake's surface.

Jacen remembered that Naorrmi and Torrick were still up above and likely in danger. The Jedi shot up through the water and exited into the air like a cork. He just missed getting bit in half, as Darcasterioninderpull had been waiting on the bank of the lake. Instead of trying to land next to the enraged worm, Jacen channeled more energy through his flight and landed on the cliff wall opposite the falls.

From his perch, Jacen watched the storm around him continue to grow in fury. He was not so wrapped up in his anger to ignore the fact that this storm, however remote the possibility seemed to be, was some sort of projection of his anger into the physical world. The nature loving Jedi had played with the weather before, but only by redirecting wind, or willing rain from reluctant clouds. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined that he had the capability to command a storm of this magnitude.

Jacen watched as Darcasterioninderpull once again rose in flight to meet the Jedi. Jacen had no river to hurl at the dragon this time, and the scaled projectile was coming in much slower, its nimble wings ready to adjust for any dodge Jacen might try. The Force strong weatherman tried a different tactic. He reached out to the tormented sky above him and drew an incredible lightening bolt from the atmosphere. The knife of immensely high voltage stabbed deep into Darcasterioninderpull's right wing, nearly ripping the sail from his body.

The resulting gash in the leathery wing sent the dragon into a vicious corkscrew, and it collided with the cliff wall once again. This time it managed to land on dry ground, but Jacen's reaction was the same as he hurled himself after the falling monstrosity. Loosed by the lightening and following close behind Jacen, the rain began to come down in sheets. It was almost as if the pair was fighting under water again. Jacen was quick and agile, while Darcasterioninderpull with his broken wing was slow and lethargic.

Jacen picked off scale after scale with his right blade and let his left fill the gap with a well executed jab. Wound after wound began to form on the dragon's hide, each one hissing violently as the torrential downpour evaporated away the worm's body heat. As chills began to creep through Darcasterioninderpull's body with each new attack of Jacen's whirling blades, the dragon became more focused. His wavering claws, and darting jaws no longer had even the remotest chance of hitting the elusive Jedi, but the nearly 500-year-old beast was not going to simply give up and die.

Darcasterioninderpull slowly began to work his adversary toward the cliff wall. Jacen was far too absorbed in fending off the slowing attacks and administering his own to notice the change of tactics by the clever worm. Before he knew it, Jacen had backed up against the wall and was nearly encompassed by the enormous bulk of the dragon. The huge wings of the beast, injured or not, closed around the cornered Jedi, giving the small fighter nowhere to run.

"Now you die," Darcasterioninderpull said, his crystal clear pronunciation lost during the fight. With one last tremendous heave, the weakened dragon hurled its enormous weight against the rock wall, crushing the Jedi.

Torrick watched the end of the battle, from a crouched position next to Naorrmi and Cary. He saw the dragon hurl itself at the wall and flinched on Jacen's behalf. As the bulk of the dragon smacked against the wall, the most vicious display of lightening the Gotal had ever seen ripped through the sky, occasionally alighting on the rocky cliff and sparking off the treetops. The huge serpent stayed plastered to the cliff just above the bank of the lake for a few agonizing seconds, before rolling back from the wall. The limp form of the huge beast rolled on to its back revealing two huge red gashes on its chest right above its heart. The sight of the two death wounds was only visible for a short while as the dead dragon continued its slow roll into the lake.

Torrick adjusted his eyes to the cliff wall. Through the pouring rain he could see Jacen flattened against the wall, both his lightsabers braced against the rock behind him and sticking out perpendicular the cliff face. The length of the handles extended just a hair further from the wall than the Jedi's head and broad chest, which was now heaving steadily as the exhausted warrior tried to find his breath.

Jacen was hardly relaxed as he walked away from the cliff and lake. The storm of his fury still raged as he returned to his two remaining companions. One more death on his hands. One more life that he could have saved if he had just been a little quicker. Another member of his group had sacrificed his life to save someone because Jacen, the vaunted Jedi protector, had been unable to complete his fate-given responsibility.

It was thus with pure hatred that Jacen responded to Torrick's poorly chosen words. The Gotal walked away from Naorrmi and Cary to meet Jacen. "You won the game!"

Before Jacen could check his anger, lightening struck one last time, dancing in between the head cones of the innocent Gotal for several agonizing moments. The look on Torrick's face was one of utter shock. His eyes began to stare at Jacen's but quickly glassed over and became unseeing. Torrick's rigid body teetered briefly in the wind before collapsing backwards, his two head cones steaming in the quickly fading rain.

The storm dissipated with Jacen's sudden change of emotion, and he ran over to the fallen Gotal. A quick check showed Jacen that his "friend" was not dead, but in a severe comma. He tried to better analyze Torrick's condition, but his mental torment was too much and he passed out.

Jacen woke to fading daylight. The sound of a fire crackled in the twilight, and Jacen stirred from his position. Naorrmi noticed his motion and moved to his side to see if he was injured. "Are you okay? I checked you for blood, but it seems that you escaped the creature without any bad scars."

Jacen nodded slowly, not feeling any major injuries as he slowly got up. The ground was still damp around him, but the sky above was peaceful, showing no signs of the storm that had ravished the pass an hour or so ago. Jacen noticed Torrick laying on the ground a short distance away and remembered how he had come to his unconscious state.

"He was struck by lightening just before you passed out. I feared that you had been hit too."

"No," Jacen responded, "I'm fine. I was just stressed." He walked over to the stretched out Gotal. As he neared, he began to here soft mumbling. Kneeling beside the unmoving scout showed that the sound was coming from his mouth, though none of the words were recognizable.

"He's been talking like that for the past half hour," Naorrmi explained, standing over the pair. "I thought he was dead, but he wouldn't be making noise like that, would he?"

"No," Jacen agreed, "he's not dead." After a few moments of inspection both physical and mental, Jacen stood up. "The lightening shorted out the brain synopsis controlling his senses. His head cones were hit pretty hard and are connected directly to the sensory part of his mind. Right now he is alive but he can't see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. He can speak and move, but can't feel that he is doing so and likely won't try. The mumbling is just his mind working out what is going on. I wouldn't be surprised if he starts talking to himself, totally unaware that he is making any audible sound because he won't be able to feel or hear it."

Naorrmi nodded, understanding the situation. "Is there anything we can do for him?"

Jacen shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I'm not a doctor. There might be a way to repair the injured parts of his brain, but it certainly can't be done out here." Jacen took a moment to take in what "out here" was. The pass looked much like it had when Jacen had first met Darcasterioninderpull, though there was no sign of the dead dragon save a few scorch marks in the grass. "Is it dead?"

Naorrmi nodded. "It rolled into the lake after you killed it and hasn't shown itself since. The lake was bubbling for a long time, but it stopped about fifteen minutes ago."

Jacen could think of nothing else that needed to be done this night and didn't want to start traveling again until morning came. The night was peaceful with only the sound of the waterfall and Torrick's disturbed mumbling, but Jacen couldn't find any sleep. They had started with six and were now down to two. The Jedi hadn't really been stellar in keeping his people alive and together. It had been his idea to come up to see the dragon again, and then it had been him who had angered the beast into action. Common sense told him that the demon would have attacked the group regardless of what Jacen had done, but the fact remained that it had happened as a result of Jacen's actions.

Morning came for the eleventh time since Jacen had been stranded on the planet. He didn't even have a name for the thing; it was just "the planet." The twelfth day seemed like it was going to be just the same as all the others. Maybe not as many people will to die today, Jacen thought.

Jacen swam across the lake to see what the river descending the other side of the pass was like. The whole way across he kept feeling the odd sensation that something was going to grab his leg and pull him down to join Darcasterioninderpull. He made it to the other side without incident and was happy to find the down slope to be much gentler than the climb up had been. The river was more like a wide stream and didn't seem to have any rapids at all.

Jacen quickly constructed another raft, much smaller than his earlier creation, and before the sun had been up an hour, Jacen, Naorrmi, and an unconscious Torrick were floating down into the valley below the mountain range. The stream took a bend to the south after half a kilometer, letting the tall, bordering trees offer shade for the entire day. It seemed like it was going to be a peaceful trip until the talking started.

"What . . . what is it?"

Jacen and Naorrmi looked up from their humdrum to stare at the Gotal.

"Am I . . . but what am I doing?"

Torrick's lips were moving imperceptibly, but the words were unmistakable.

"Torrick?" Naorrmi called, but the Gotal kept on mumbling to himself. Jacen knew that his injury was not one that would heal over time, or maybe ever, and Torrick had no way of hearing them or even knowing that he was talking out loud. This was the result of the Gotal's mind finally waking up from its comma.

"Where is . . . what is . . . how?" The mind was struggling with the fact that it could think and reason, but couldn't seem to connect to its body. It was doing all of the things it normally did for speech, but didn't feel the expected vibrations.

Jacen and Naorrmi watched as Torrick's eyes flickered open and blinked a few times. They kept blinking rapidly as his leg and arm began to twitch. "He's trying to sense his body, but he can't feel anything," Jacen said in response to Naorrmi's worried glances.

Soon the body motion stopped when the Gotal gave up trying to test his nervous system. As sad as the situation was, Jacen was looking forward to hearing how the conscious mind tried to reason out the situation. That interest dissolved almost immediately. "The blasted Jedi did this to me!" Torrick's mind and mouth screamed.

"He couldn't control anything - not one thing! Starting with the water supply and ending with his own temper, he lost every battle he entered. Sure he might have defeated the physical enemy, but there were other enemies he couldn't see. What a pathetic excuse for a Jedi. The protectors of the galaxy, bah! Couldn't even protect six people form cats, fish, and dogs. Calin and Cary - now they saved lives. Jacen, he didn't save anyone but himself."

Jacen got up from his seated position on the raft and walked slowly over to the mumbling Gotal. He stood over his friend wondering if he was suffering from delirium or suffering the truth.

"Not once did he take me seriously. I told him he was playing a game, but did he listen? No! What kind of leader takes his followers to face a dragon fully knowing what the creature is capable of? He was playing a game with our lives. We could have gone around. Sure it would have taken longer, but Cary and I would still be alive. NO! I'm not dead! That cursed Jedi kept me alive for his own sick kind of revenge. I saw it in his eyes when he struck me. He knew I spoke the truth and he killed me. NO! I'm not dead! He killed my body but left my mind in this purgatory to rot away for all eternity."

Jacen didn't even bother to look over at Naorrmi as he bent over to pick up the incoherent Gotal. Jacen gripped the alien's jacket in two strong hands and hoisted the limp body up so he could look Torrick in his unseeing eyes.

"Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi!"

"SHUT UP!!!" Jacen shook the unconscious body as hard as he could, but the cries kept coming out of the mouth that had no idea it was being throttled. Torrick bit his own tongue several times and blood began to flow from the unfeeling Gotal's mouth, but Jacen didn't stop.

"Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Jedi! Curse the Je-"

"It's not my fault!!" Jacen interrupted. The cry was so intense that the ripple of anger flowing from Jacen turned the nearby trees brown. Torrick's incessant chatter ceased as his mind somehow felt the anger. "I tried to save them. I tried to save them all. I was too slow, OKAY! I was to slow! There I admit it. I can't save everyone. I wanted to. Blast it! You have no idea how much I wanted to, but I didn't and I can't go back to fix it! They're dead and I can't bring them back! I couldn't save Calin! I couldn't save Gertide! I couldn't save Cary! I couldn't save Arie-" but Jacen choked up before he could finish the words. His body slumped visibly, though he still held Torrick up. "I couldn't save her Torrick. She was in my arms, my warm, Force-filled arms, and I couldn't save her. Know that I tried, please friend, know that I tried but I just couldn't do it. I am learning the harsh reality of this life, and it is that I can not do everything.

"I wanted to lead you, all of you, to water and then to safety, but it just didn't happen. Was it my fault? Could I have gone east when I instead went west? Should I have gone around the dragon? Could I have reacted faster to save Gertide or Cary? I don't know, but believe me, those questions will haunt my existence long after you have passed from this life." Jacen slumped a little further, letting his knees touch the raft while still holding the Gotal up.

"He did try," Torrick began to say, "but he hardly tried hard enough. I think he actually wanted the old woman to die. He had maybe even planned it! The ease in which he had killed those fish was amazing, yet he had let one of them slip through just long enough to kill her. He was just playing with us. He was playing with us the whole time, like it was some kind of game!"

Jacen just released the Gotal, letting him fall on his face. Torrick's already flat nose crunched violently against the hard wood of the raft, and blood flowed freely. Despite the painful injury, Torrick kept talking.

"If he would have listened to me just once, some of us would still be alive. If he would have gotten off his Jedi pedestal just long enough to realize that we were sentients too, he would have had the sensibility to pay more attention to our needs. But did he? No! He kept pushing at us, making us move when we were tired, making us rest when we wanted to move, making us eat when we were thirsty, and making us drink when we were hungry."

Jacen couldn't bear to listen to the words spoken into the raft any longer and walked to the far edge of the logs. He sat down and hung his legs into the water, kicking and splashing to cover up the talking. Somehow, regardless of how loud he splashed, the words of accusation came through loud and clear.

Naorrmi didn't know what to do about the whole situation. She was shocked by Jacen's reaction, not knowing how much responsibility the Jedi actually took for the three deaths that had plagued the party over the last week and a half. The talking Gotal also terrified her. He just lay there, blood caked all over his face, which was plastered to the raft, but he kept right on talking.

Jacen soon stopped splashing in the water and just sat on the edge of the raft, his head in his hands. The words of the Gotal just kept coming and coming. He repeated himself often and always returned to the one phrase that seemed to ease his imprisoned mind: "Curse the Jedi!"

To say the day went slowly would be a terrible understatement. Night went even slower. Jacen didn't move from his hunkered spot at the front of the raft. He didn't try to fish or find food of any kind. Naorrmi was pregnant and maturing rapidly and needed food to keep her strength, but she dare not interrupt the Jedi's brooding.

Naorrmi also didn't interrupt the Jedi because she saw that by not stopping to camp, they had made incredible time on the swift stream. By morning the valley floor could be seen ahead, and that wasn't the only thing Naorrmi could see.

"Jacen," she said, standing on the small raft, "smoke."

"Which means there's a fire," he responded, not looking up at all. Torrick was still cursing the Jedi. Right now he was working on Jacen's family and was spending far too much time on his parents.

"I see a chimney!"

Jacen did look up this time, and agreed that the stone pillar sticking up above the trees did indeed look like it belonged to a house. The stream suddenly picked up its pace as they neared the bottom of the slope, and Jacen had something else to think about as he tried desperately to keep the raft away from rocks and steep falls. The roller coaster ride lasted a few minutes, and when it was over suddenly, an enormous house was spread out before them.

The trees ended suddenly at the edge of the slope and grassy meadows existed past them. In front of the house were several well kept gardens each just sprouting green stems in the early spring. Behind the house Jacen saw an extensive fence system enclosing cattle and riding animals. The house was set just a short ways from the stream with a large wooden wheel hanging in the current and turning slowly. Jacen watched as the cupped paddles of the wheel filled with liquid and dumped their contents into an elevated trough, obviously supplying the house with running water. The mechanical motion of the wheel was also probably harnessed as Jacen saw a turning shaft disappear into the side of the house.

The house was two large levels, the bottom of stone and the top of wood. The stonework on the bottom level was crafted to perfection, and the wood was well kept and a long way from rotting. The chimney rose from the back of the house and extended a good two meters above the wooden roof, preventing any chance of a house fire.

Jacen looked at the house for a long time before he realized there was a man in the doorway looking at them. "Hello," the man called. "You look hungry. Would you care to come in for a meal?"

Neither Jacen nor Naorrmi responded vocally, but quickly worked the raft over to the riverbank near the house. The man came down to the waterfront and helped them hold the raft steady as they got off. Jacen lifted Torrick from the raft gently, feeling a little sorry that he had let the Gotal lie in his blood all night.

"Let me help you with him," the man offered. Jacen was immediately amazed at the man's strength. He looked to be about 50 years old, which wasn't ancient, but it was past most people's physical prime. This man hoisted Torrick into his arms as if he weighed nothing. "You two go on into the house. I'll make sure your injured friend finds a soft bed to lie in while you eat."

Neither of the two adventurers had spoken yet, and they didn't start now with the offer of food so near. Even before they walked through the front door, they could smell the rich aroma of what had to be a feast. As they walked through the kitchen and into the dining room, they were not disappointed in the least.

The dinning room table was enormous, and it was a good thing, for any smaller table would have surely collapsed under the weight of such a meal. It was time for the early morning meal and stacks upon stacks of breakfast cakes lay upon several plates. Some were smothered in sugary syrup while others were covered with feathery cream and topped with ripe fruit. Links of sausage steamed away on several dishes looking thicker than either of the hungry pair had ever seen before. Strips of bacon and piles of toast stood next to glasses of crystal clear water and colorful fruit juice. Though there was enough breakfast food on the table to feed an army, the meal didn't stop there. In the middle of the table slabs of meat were jumbled on plates with boats of gravy standing by. White meat and dark meat, rare meat and scorched meat stood by waiting to be devoured. Steaks glistened from the light shining through the window, swelling so full of flavor that Jacen feared that they would burst if he didn't eat them fast enough. And eat is exactly what the starving pair did.

There were two chairs positioned at the table, each strategically located so that their occupants could reach anyone of the dishes before them. There was at least two of everything so neither of the hungry guests had to fight over a dish. Half an hour later the amount of food on the table had been greatly diminished but the rate at which it was being consumed hadn't slowed in the slightest.

The man of the house walked up behind the pair carrying two pitchers, one of water and the other filled with the fruit drink. He put them down between Jacen and Naorrmi, neither of whom paid the man any attention, but each grabbed a pitcher and refilled their glasses.

The man smiled at their one-track minds and slowly made his way over to the other side of the table. He brought a chair in from another room and took a seat at the table. He made no move to get any food for himself, but simply watched his guests gorge themselves. "You know," he said suddenly, when there was a slight lull in the chewing, "you two have performed admirably. I must say that in my 700 some years of doing this, I've never seen a better played or more interesting game than what happened over the past two weeks."

Jacen's fork suddenly faltered. His jaw took a little while to loose its momentum, and when it did, he swallowed and looked up. Naorrmi was just as shocked by the man's words. It was all the Foraean could do not to choke on her food.

"I've had some high scores in the past," the man continued, seemingly indifferent toward his guests' responses, "but you blew them all away. And it wasn't just the high scores either, it was how everyone scored. First of all, Jacen Solo," the man looked at the stunned Jedi with what seemed like sincere admiration, "you racked up the highest score that . . ., well let's just say you more than quadrupled any previous high score, and like I said, I've been doing this for over 700 years."

"And Naorrmi, my dear, you more than exceeded my expectations setting a new record for your age division and for females. But it wasn't just the high scores, like I said before, it was everything." Jacen found that he was simply too shocked to move. He couldn't even move for more food. He just stared at this supposed game master.

"First of all there was the Mon Calamari, oh, what was his name? Uh, Calin Allenbar, I think. Anyway, he made the single highest scoring move in history, yet didn't even rank in the top fifty all time for final score. It was that one self-sacrifice for five people he really didn't know that did it. I triple checked the rulebook before I awarded him 25,000 points for the move, and I would have given him more if I could.

"Then there was Gertide with a grand total of seven points when all was said and done. I've had infants in the game that have scored more points than that. She got 100 points for offering her water around out on the prairie, but had lost so many points for previously withholding it that it was really a push. After that she got a few for her little talk with you," he looked at Jacen," but then lost them again when she ignored your warnings. She was actually in the red when she died, but I gave her a dozen or so points just for style.

"We can't forget Cary Yuven, Mr. Score in Bunches or not at all. I haven't been that impressed with someone since I had an Ewok in the game 87 years ago. I mean I usually make predictions for all my players, and I had him down for a solid 12,000. Heck, he got a nifty 10,000 just for beating you," he looked at Jacen, "in the battle for you," he looked over at Naorrmi. "He scored two different ways that night," he laughed. "Then he got another two grand for spotting the vornskrs before a Jedi or Gotal noticed them. And then finished the game strong with a 15,250 point maneuver which put him on the top ten list for highest scoring single moves. Calin is of course at the top of that list, though you, my Jedi friend, are on the list three different times.

"I can't even begin to recount your exploits. The three big point getters put you tenth, fourth, and third on the list. With the tenth place total of 12,500 I'm still shaking my head in wonderment. How you resisted this beautiful young Foraean nine nights ago still boggles my mind. There were no rules written up for that kind of self-control, so I made up some new ones so you got credit for it. The other two were both with Darcasterioninderpull. Like the name? I thought of it myself. The deathblow was worth 22,450 and intimidating a member of the most powerful race to have ever existed was worth a grand total of 22,725. The rest of your exploits are far two numerous to mention. Heck, the entire battle with Darcasterioninderpull alone earned you 176,890 points which is more than anyone else had ever gotten total and you got it in seven and a half minutes.

"Oh, I'm forgetting Torrick. The poor Gotal actually had the second lowest score of the group, and I had originally ranked him second behind you. He just never got out from behind your shadow. And the when he did, he just came running back to you for help. I guess I shouldn't have used the dragon on him right away. If I would have warmed him up with a rock-slide or maybe a bird attack, he would have been able to build some confidence, but still, he should have at least tried to sneak past the dragon."

The game master paused in his recounting of the past thirteen days long enough to grab a piece of fruit from a basket in the middle of the table. "I hope you liked all the little ironies I threw into the mix. I mean letting Calin sacrifice himself that close to water must have killed you. Oh, yeah, Gertide did earn a few points for her comment after you guys saw the water." He fished a datapad out of his back pocket. "I think I added that into her score. Nope, my fault. Let's see . . . humor during a tense situation to brighten the mood is worth 20-100 points. I guess it didn't brighten the mood a whole lot, heck it was a down right cruel thing to say, but the rules says she gets 20 points, giving her a grand total of 27. It still sucks.

"Of course then there were the animals I kept sending at you. Cats ate the fish in your group. Humans don't really have any natural predators, but they've always been terrified of things in the water with sharp teeth. I sent Force hating dogs after you two. It took me a while to think of the natural enemy for Gotals, but as soon as I remembered all those fantasy stories where the dragon eats the farmer's goats, I couldn't help myself."

Jacen's ears were burning with hatred, but he still hadn't moved since he had stopped eating. His fork was still poised over his plate, and the little bit of food in his mouth remaining from the last bite was still unswallowed. Jacen hadn't noticed this immobility while he had listened to the Game Master go through his spiel, but now his paralysis was very evident. He tried to reach out to the Force, but his mind was so jumbled with anger and confusion he couldn't concentrate. As he tried to push all of his other concerns away, he noticed that his mind was slowly falling away from him. His neck began to loosen as his eyelids became heavy and his muscles relaxed. The food was drugged!

"I'll tell you what," the man continued, speaking quickly so Jacen could hear before he passed out, "normally any surviving members of the game come here, I'll tell them how well they did, and then I kill them. I think you two did such a good job, though that I've got something different planned. I think the highest scoring male and the highest scoring female ever deserve more than just a swift death." Jacen was just about gone now, his mind screaming out warnings that he was in danger, but there was nothing the Jedi could do. He had eaten way too much of the drug to be able to fight it this late. The man spoke one more sentence and it was the last thing Jacen heard. "You won a free game!"

Heat. The heat was unbearable.

Jacen's back seemed like it was on fire, and he tried to roll over to put it out. The ground bit into him like thousands of tiny knives. He soon lay on his back, feeling the intense heat on his face and closed eyelids. He opened his eyes slowly and was blinded by the sun. Jacen quickly rolled back over and opened his eyes in the shade offered by the back of his head. He was looking at sand. Sand filled his peripheral vision, and as he looked up to get his bearings, sand continued to be the only visible item in sight.

This sand wasn't the nice, soft beach sand that he had used to cushion the rafts, nor was it the thick rich dirt in which he had planted gardens back at the Academy. It was the incredibly sharp rock dust that was ever so common on his uncle's home planet. Jacen was still without a shirt, and he could feel the tiny granules sticking to his burnt back and chest.

The Jedi slowly pushed himself to his hands and knees, took a deep breath, and stood up on his knees. The dessert was immense. Dune after dune flowed into the horizon like ocean waves to a shipwreck survivor. Jacen glanced behind him and saw Naorrmi, somewhat protected by the shirt and pants she still wore, lying face down in the sand, still unconscious.

A game! After all Torrick's claims that he felt they were in a game and after all Jacen's claims that what the Gotal sensed was not coming from him, it had turned out that they were both right. Jacen took a long look at the new game board, wondering how in the world the Game Master had moved them so far from their previous location so quickly. Jacen could tell he had not been out more than a few hours, and the morning sun was still not at its zenith.

A game! Was Jacen supposed to lead Naorrmi back to the house by the stream, killing attacker after vicious attacker just so the old man could tell them how well they had done and then send them out to play again. Game after game, how long would it last? Would the old Game Master finally think of something to beat them? What happened when you lost the game? Jacen thought of Torrick, Cary, Calin, and Gertide and knew exactly what happened to the losers.

Well, Jacen thought to himself, the first thing we are going to need is shade. Soon after that we are going to need wat- WAIT! I'm not going to play this stupid game again!

"Hey!" Jacen screamed into the sky. "I'm not going to play! Do you hear me? I said I'm not going to play!" Jacen sat heavily in the sand, staring blindly off into the dessert, waiting for a response. It came from behind him.

"Jacen," the voice was weak and feminine.

Jacen spun around to see that Naorrmi had awakened. He rushed over to her and saw she was not holding up well to the intense heat. Cats don't sweat and rely on panting or heavy breathing to remove heat from their body. She had been unconscious for so long and unable to remove any heat from her system that she was literally burning up.

"Jacen, I need water." Her voice sounded heartbreaking.

"Okay, just rest. I'll see if I can find some." Jacen got up from his crouch and began searching the landscape for some sign of an oasis or some ty- NO! "I said I'm not going to play. Do you hear me?!"

Jacen felt something else from behind him. It was a shimmering in the Force like he'd never felt before. He turned to look at a spot in the sand and was amazed by what he saw. The sand began to bubble up as if a tree were trying to grow beneath it. Instead of a tree, a foot long scorpion emerged from the dessert floor. Its tail was poised high above its back, the tip swelling with lethal poison. The creature scurried faster than Jacen thought the little legs should have been capable of and made a beeline toward the prone Foraean.

Jacen reacted on instinct. His lightsaber was out, ignited, and replaced in the span of a second. The result of his handy work was cut in half, still a meter away from Naorrmi. Jacen realized what he had done right after he did it. "No more tricks," he said toward the sky. "I said I'm not going to play, and I meant it."

The shimmering in the Force came again, only there were multiple instances this time. All around the two game players sections of the dessert began to bubble up. Jacen was able to analyze the occurrence a little better this time and was truly confused by the phenomenon. It seemed as if the fabric of life was being stretched and altered to allow the insertion of a living organism. A dozen scorpions, all bigger than the one Jacen had just killed began to close around the pair.

Jacen again reached for his lightsabers, but stopped himself. With great reluctance, he slowly sat in the sand and lay down next to Naorrmi, who was looking at the approaching creatures with growing fear. "Jacen! Do something!"

"Just lie here," he said as calmly as he could. "If we refuse to play I don't think he'll let us die. We are too valuable to him as entertainment." Jacen didn't really believe what he was saying but figured he would die in this game at sometime in the next few days or weeks or months and would rather not give the Game Master any entertainment when it happened.

Jacen closed his eyes when a scorpion near his head looked like it was about to strike. There was another shimmering in the Force, kind of like the fabric of space was being stretched again, but this time to remove some threads.

"I understand," a voice said from nowhere. "We already did the 'dying of thirst in unbearable heat' game. It's my fault. I should have realized you would want a change of venue."

This time the ripple in the Force was far more than a little shimmering. Jacen's whole view of the world through the Force began to stretch and reshape itself. He could feel the fabric of both space and time grow and change as it was altered and adjusted by some master artisan. The matrix of life was being poked at, changing a number here, altering a symbol there, and transposing entire sections.

The visual reality of the change was only slightly less fantastic. Jacen kept his eyes wide as the scenery began to grow fuzzy. It soon became so out of focus that it seemed they were simply floating in some void, the distinct landscape reduced to blurry representations of what it had been.

As Jacen felt the energy fabric of his surroundings changing bit by bit, he also noticed the blurry images of the landscape changing. As the process continued, Jacen began to feel as if he almost understood the method of change. He watched as the sun above, which was now just a distant blur, began to loose its luster, corresponding to a distant sensation of a matrix reduction.

The sand beneath them also began to change. Jacen could feel the fabric beneath them begin to align itself more uniformly. What had been a chaotic matrix structure became far more repetitive and crystalline. The air too underwent a significant change. He could feel the energy drain from it, but also felt the vector matrices that had been responsible for its motion begin to gain magnitude and direction.

The whole process lasted less than five seconds, but Jacen tried to exist in that moment as much as he could, daring the Game Master to reveal more of his technique in controlling the game board. When reality snapped back into focus, they were lying on a windswept, snowy wasteland. The temperature was incredibly low, and Jacen began to shiver immediately.

Naorrmi sat up, totally confused with what had just happened, but clung to Jacen, searching for heat. "J-J-Jacen w-what's hap-p-pining," she shivered into his ear.

Jacen didn't answer her question because he was too lost in memories. The situation was far too painful for him to deal with. These were the conditions in which he had lost Ariela. It had been cold that had killed her then, and Jacen didn't want to go through that again with Naorrmi.

"I've played this game before too!" Jacen screamed. "And I hate it!"

The Game Master didn't waste his time in remedying the situation. Something new popped up this time. Save for the scorpions, there had been no life in the two game boards so far. Now Jacen felt the fabric begin to expand upon itself. The matrices started to gain a fourth and fifth dimension as they began to change on their own. The random fluctuations were being instigated all around the amazed Jedi. Before Jacen had the opportunity to get a real good grasp on the situation, he found they were now in the middle of a jungle.

Life was evident all around them. The sound of a stream trickling nearby was mixed with bird calls and primate screeches. Things running and slithering through the underbrush meshed harmoniously with the sound of the wind as it made its own way through the jungle.

Jacen reached out as far as he could with the Force, trying to sense how big this illusion was. The problem was he wasn't so sure it was an illusion in the first place. Everything seemed so real. He had spent 13 days in this fantasyland and hadn't noticed once that it was fake, if it indeed was. It only made sense now. All of the little ironies, from the very beginning when the canyon was dry to the end when the pass was the only way through, were finally understood. This strange ability the Game Master had to alter the landscape and change life itself would always ensure that any players in his game would run into exactly what he deemed necessary.

"What about an island?" Jacen asked.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than they were standing on a cliff, looking out over a 20-meter drop into the endless ocean. Jacen smiled. He had followed the move perfectly. He knew what was going on. "How about dolphins?"

"How about these?"

Jacen spun around, sensing the materialization of the creatures before they even reached the physical plane. Four six-legged creatures with mouths over-flowing with teeth came leaping at them from over three meters away. "No," Jacen said, apparently not interested in the creatures, "I said dolphins." Instantly the creatures turned into long porpoises. The transformed animals flew over Jacen and Naorrmi, hit the water beyond and below them, and swam off into the horizon.

"How did you do that?!"

Jacen's smile was enormous. "It think this cliff is a little too high for my taste." Immediately the ground began to tremble and the cliff face began to sink into the ground. Soon the water was lapping right below the edge of the upraised rock.

Jacen turned to Naorrmi, and the Foraean almost screamed. There was a look in his eye that she had never seen before. She understood enough about what was going on to realize that Jacen had somehow taken control of the Game Master's world. Though she was relieved that they would probably now make it through the ordeal alive, something had happened to Jacen, and it scared her.

"I can do anything," he said, a mad glint in his eye. "Come with me." Before Naorrmi had a chance to reply, the Jedi reached out, grabbed her hand, and pulled her through a dimensional door. They stepped off the cliff and into a room of the house in which they had eaten that morning. Before them sat the old man. He was in front of an enormous computer with a helmet on his head. Wires and circuits ran from the helmet into the computer, making it look like the man was in a virtual reality simulation. He began to reach out into the air, not really seeing what he was doing, but knowing that they were near him from what the simulator told him.

Jacen walked over to him and ripped the helmet off his head. "You won't need the computer to handle your matrix manipulation anymore," he said, anger brimming over in his voice. "I am in complete control now."

The former game master shrank back from the imposing Jedi, seeing the obvious change that had come over him with his new found power. "What is this planet?"

"I-I-I'm not sh-sh-sure. Someone j-j-just showed it t-t-to me along time ago."

"Stop that insane stuttering and tell me before I remove the information from you manually."

The man swallowed and tried to gain his composure. "It's something to do with the sun and the black hole beyond it. They send out these weird subspace disturbances, and this planet happens to fall inside a node of those waves. I don't understand it fully, but the fabric of reality is loosely tied together, and if you can work out the math and structure behind simulated life, you can stretch the fabric enough to insert what you like."

"Are you Force sensitive," Jacen asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

"If I was, do you think I'd need this computer to do all the work for me."

Jacen grinned his evil grin. "Don't worry, you won't need it anymore." Jacen snapped his fingers and willed it out of existence. The fabric of reality simply stretched open to absorb the machine and it disappeared in a slight haze of atoms. Jacen looked at the suddenly unintimidating old man. "Do you realize all the pain you have caused me over the past two weeks? Do you realize the torture you've put me through for your own pleasure?" Jacen snapped his fingers and the house they had been in disappeared, leaving them standing in a grassy field. "Do you have any idea what kind of fun it's going to be to repay you for all of that anguish?"

"You can't kill me," the man said quickly, backing away from the Jedi. "Do you know that? You can't kill me. I'm not from this planet. I'm tangible. I'm not artificial. You can't just will me out of existence!" He suddenly stopped backing up when his back collided with something big. He remembered the field to be empty, but couldn't deny that he was leaning against something very unmovable.

Not really wanting to, the old man looked up slowly. The evil grin belonging to Darcasterioninderpull stared back down at him. "Hello, dad," the dragon said with eerie familiarity. The man tried to run. Where he was going he hadn't quite figured out yet and he never got a chance to get there. Darcasterioninderpull reached out quickly and snatched up the fleeing man with his mouth. The evil dragon now fully under Jacen's control had the former game master by the foot, dangling upside-down some seven meters over the ground.

"I beat this creation of yours, you know," Jacen said, floating up in the air so he could look the inverted man in the eyes. "And if you think that he was a scary creation, you ain't seen nothing yet."

"Put me down. Put me down. Please put me down. I have a ship. I can get you off this planet."

"You think I want to leave here?" Jacen responded. "Where else can I be a god, creating life and removing it as I see fit. Why I could create an entire race of new animals just for fun and then kill them off without breaking any laws because they're not real. You know I just realized how I was able to control that storm back when I fought Darcasterioninderpull. I think it odd that you didn't mention that spectacular feat of mine when you recounted my exploits at breakfast this morning."

The man seemed deflated. "Yes, that was you controlling the storm, not me. I was scared you had figured out how it all worked. Now can you please let me down?"

"Certainly."

Darcasterioninderpull bit down swiftly, easily cleaving the man's foot from his body and releasing the suspended catch to the ground. Unfortunately, the old man's head and neck hit the ground first with a stomach turning crack. Naorrmi looked at the odd angle of his neck and knew Jacen's little torture session was over for now.

Jacen frowned at his carelessness. He lowered himself to the ground, willed the dragon away, and turned to Naorrmi. "Hello, darling," he said, that power hungry look still very evident in his eyes. "I'm really sorry for rejecting you all those nights ago back by the first waterfall. If I can make it up to you, I'd be more than willing to show you what I'm capable of right now. I'm sure you'll never feel anything like it again."

Naorrmi tried to back away from the power crazy Jedi, but she tripped on a rock that just happened to be in her way. She fell backwards into a huge bed of flowers, bursting with aroma. Jacen stood above her, slowly undoing his belt. "What a beautiful picture."

"Jacen!" Naorrmi screamed at him, trying to kick him away and get up. "Get away from me!"

"What's wrong, baby. Is the setting wrong? What do you want? Night time? The beach? The forest? A tropical island?" With each place, the surroundings changed to match the description. The changes happened much faster than before, the surroundings clicking to the new environments instead of fading in and out. After his short display, they returned to the meadow.

"Anything you want I can give you."

"I want Cary," she said quickly, trying to attack Jacen where he was vulnerable.

Jacen smiled back at the feeble attempt. "No problem," he replied. The new Game Master waved his hand and the requested young man appeared.

"Naorrmi!" he said and ran toward her. "How is our child? Can you feel him kicking yet?"

Naorrmi's face grew white with fright as if she were looking at a ghost. "He's not real. I saw him die!"

"But I thought you wanted your lover back?" Jacen said, mocking her disturbed state. "Very well." Cary stood between Jacen and Naorrmi, so when Jacen unleashed a tremendous fireball at the pair in front of him, Cary took it full in the back. The scorched young man fell forward into Naorrmi's strong arms, his skin dripping off his back.

"I loved you," he said softly as his lungs breathed their last, again. His torched body became limp in her arms, and she let him go. His body disappeared before it ever hit the ground.

"Touching," Jacen scoffed, pretending to sniff a tear. "I thought you wanted your big man back."

"He's dead, Jacen," she scolded the changed man in front of her. "They're all dead."

"No, no, no," he corrected her in a soothing tone. "They live on in our memories. They never truly die if we keep them up here. I just have the ability to bring them from up here," he tapped his head, "to out here." He spread his arms out wide and all four dead members of their original group appeared. Calin, Gertide, Cary, and Torrick all stood in a line, exactly how they looked like when they had first met.

"They're not real," Naorrmi argued.

"Why not?"

Naorrmi turned to the group. "Gertide?"

The old woman looked at the Foraean with the same look she had used on everyone during the first few days of their journey. "What is it?"

"What was your husband's name?"

The woman's expression changed suddenly to one of confusion. "Surely, I should remember something like that. It seems to have slipped my memory."

"I can tell you why you don't know," Naorrmi pointed at Jacen, "because he doesn't know. You aren't real. You are just a creation of Jacen's mind."

"Bah," Jacen replied to the accusation and with a wave of his hand the four ghosts were gone. "You are taking this way too literally."

"Too literally?!" Naorrmi practically screamed. "How can you say that I am taking life and death, reality and imagination too literally. You are the one who isn't taking it literal enough."

"I never really knew those people. If tried to remember someone I really cared about then you wou-" he stopped in mid-sentence because his subconscious had already acted upon his thoughts before his brain could put them into words. Standing before him in the well-remembered black dress and wearing the infamous diamond necklace was Ariela.

Jacen's mind suddenly disconnected with his body as his physical form just slumped into a sitting position. With the other four people he had created, there had been obvious flaws. For starters they had had incomplete memories as Naorrmi had tested quite well. But far more importantly, they had had no soul, no spark of life inside them. If you looked into their eyes it was like looking into a painting or a statue, because that is what, in essence, they were. They had merely been reproductions from what Jacen could remember.

Ariela was different. Jacen knew her like he knew himself. When he stared into the eyes of the woman in front of him, he saw into the eyes of his lost soulmate. So perfect was the replication of the beautiful young woman that Jacen would not have been able to pick the real one from the fake if the former were still living. So perfect was Jacen's recollection of her that he lost all control at the sight of what he had lost.

Naorrmi watched the scene with confusion. She did not know who this strange yet beautiful woman was that stood before the crumpled Jedi, but she also knew not to interfere.

"Take her, you fool." The voice was heard before the apparition became fully visible. Standing over the crumpled form of Jacen Solo was an identical clone to the troubled Jedi. "You've begged for the opportunity to be united with her from the moment you were apart. Now that you have the chance, take it."

The real Jacen raised his head looking up into the face of his love. "Have you lost your mind?" A third Jacen appeared opposite the first apparition, looking down at his own body. "That isn't her. That is your memory. You should take pride in the fact that your memory is perfect in every way. Anything you do with her would only destroy the perfection of that memory, fooling yourself into thinking she was still alive."

The real Jacen crumpled back up again.

"Stay out of this," the first copy said to the second. "You know we need this to keep our sanity."

"Not true," the second responded. "Ariela is dead. Anything that has happened between her and us is in the past. If we can not accept that, then we have forgotten the difference between life and death and are truly insane already."

Naorrmi watched the scene with amazement. Like Torrick thinking aloud without realizing it, Jacen was so wrapped up in the power this world offered him, he was unconsciously projecting his inner struggle into the physical world.

"I will not let you keep us that which we need to survive," the first said, quickly drawing its two lightsabers. "Do you want us to live in misery for the rest of our lives knowing we could have had just a few more minutes with her?"

Number two slowly removed its weapons from its belt also. "Do you want us to live with false memories spoiling the most important moments we have ever experienced with a fantasy fling?"

Four blades hissed to life and wasted no time in slashing against each other. Naorrmi watched in awe. She had seen brief glimpses of Jacen fighting the dragon and had seen his entire battle with the fish, but what she saw now was truly unbelievable. After the first few seconds, she could no longer tell which mental projection was which. The real Jacen was still curled into a little ball, twitching every time the blades of his clones collided, which they did dozens of times each second.

The sharp snaps of static that sound each time a lightsaber blade strikes another are usually very distinct, but as the two halves of Jacen's mind did battle the sound was stretched out into one solid note. Spins and twirls, flips and rolls filled the battle as each warrior knew his opponent just as well as he knew himself. Naorrmi had no idea if the battle could ever end. The fighters were not real and therefore would only tire when Jacen no longer had the mental stamina to support the battle. If Naorrmi had learned anything about the Jedi over their ordeal together, it was that Jacen Solo had more mental stamina than the five other members of their group combined.

The Foraean didn't know if she could interfere and could only hope that the right half of the goodly Jedi would come out on top.

Jaina Solo looked at the planet through her forward display. "If anyone survived this thing, that's where they'd be," she thought out loud. Crossing her fingers, the anxious young woman sent the Scavenger into a sharp dive through the planet's atmosphere.

Jaina had talked with her mother over five days ago, and the worried parent had asked if Jacen's mood had improved. After a few confused responses back and forth, it was found that Jacen had never arrived at the negotiations Jaina was administrating. A quick check into the local news, which Jaina had been ignoring during her work as a mediator between the two feuding races of the system, told Jaina the cruise ship Jacen had used to travel had been lost in space. A search team had not discovered any escape capsules in tact. If any of the life pods had survived, they should have sent out homing beacons. No such signals could be found, and the ship was reported to have lost all passengers with no survivors.

Jaina didn't quite accept that conclusion, knowing that if Jacen were dead, she would have felt it the moment it had happened. Her negotiations were just wrapping up, so she left and tracked down the last known coordinates of the cruise liner. The planet nearest the explosion showed very sketchy readings from her sensors, almost as if the planet weren't really there but was actually some type of holo projection, albeit a very good one.

Jaina still couldn't feel her brother's presence, but her instincts told her that she had found the right spot. The trip into the planet was quick and painless. The ease of the entry made up for the fact that as soon as Jaina entered the planet's atmosphere, she was assailed with a myriad of emotions that nearly caused her to crash.

After a few tense minutes, she managed to shut off the mental chatter, regain control of the Scavenger, and pinpoint the source of the disturbance. There was no doubt it was Jacen, the only question was "What on Coruscant is wrong with him?"

Naorrmi almost didn't notice the large ship that landed a few dozen meters away. She was so hypnotized by the display in front of her, it wasn't until the reverse thrusters fired that she even noticed there was a ship, much less one right behind her. The Foraean didn't want to miss the battle in front of her, but couldn't resist the urge to know who was visiting this strange world.

The woman who exited the ship was so obviously Jacen's sister, the question never had to be raised. Jaina walked up next to Naorrmi and stopped. Neither female said anything to each other, realizing much more important things than introductions were going on in front of them.

It took Jaina a long while to figure out why Jacen was fighting a mirror. So in sync were the two halves that Jaina only realized they were two different Jacen's when she saw a third curled up into a ball. "What?" Jaina finally asked.

"It's about her," Naorrmi said, pointing at the replication of Ariela.

"Who?"

"Ariela?" Naorrmi responded, remembering the name but not knowing what it meant.

Jaina had heard the name before. "But she's dead."

"Not here," Naorrmi responded.

The two had done enough talking for now. Ariela stood perfectly still, watching her two champions dueling over the validity of her existence. The moves of the fight were far too fast to choreograph, yet when combined together with such speed and coordination they seemed to represent ideas or feelings. Jacen's internal thought process could be translated from the way the two fighters wove together, parrying and striking at each other with a clear purpose.

Jaina had seen her brother fight before, but his was far different. Jacen had never met his equal in a lightsaber duel, so he had never been tested to his limits. Now not only had he met his match, but the mind was the limit as to how fast and fluid he could fight.

The battle was near its end. It wasn't because either of the fighters had gained an upper hand, but because the fighting began to accelerate at such a rate that if it didn't end in a minute, the motions would be too fast for light to keep up. Light was already having a tough time with the motions becoming a blur of blue blades. More and more the active lightsabers began to clash in the middle of the pair, sending out bigger and bigger blue sparks until a blue, hazy globe began to form over the pair. The motions of the four weapons began to support this globe, and before long, the fighters were no longer visible beneath the motions of their weapons.

The globe grew big enough to encompass both fighters completely and then remained steady. The hue of the sphere began to darken to such an intense blue that Jaina and Naorrmi had to shield their eyes. Suddenly the globe shrank to the size of a marble and exploded, sending a shock wave that threw both females from their feet.

When Naorrmi and Jaina got up, only one fighter stood in the place where two had been. It slowly replaced the weapons on its belt, looking long and hard at Ariela. Finally the fighter bowed once, and turned to find the crumpled form of its master. The apparition crumpled itself into the shape of the curled up Jedi and transfused into Jacen's physical form.

Jacen got up slowly, stretching his cramped muscles and rubbing his temples. His eyes passed briefly over Naorrmi and Jaina. If he was surprised to see his sister there, he didn't show it. Instead of going over to them, he walked slowly toward Ariela. The young woman had not moved since being willed into existence. Now she smiled. "I knew you'd win."

Jacen smiled back. "I wish I had your confidence." Jacen paused trying to figure out what to say next. "I shouldn't have brought you here, but since I did, I just wanted to say tha-"

Ariela held up her hand. "You already said your good-byes, Jacen Solo. Don't ruin their memory here."

Jacen slowly nodded, and before he could change his mind, Ariela disappeared. Jaina walked over to her brother and put her arm around him. "Want to talk about it?"

"Maybe on the flight home," he said quietly. "Right now I need to get out of here before I do something else stupid."

The sibling pair walked up to Naorrmi and paused briefly. The Foraean looked into Jacen's eyes and saw that the man who had risked his life for his friends time and time again through their ordeals on this planet was back in control. "I'm sorry," Jacen told her.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she corrected. "The person who needs to apologize will hopefully never get the chance." She looked over to where the battle had taken place and Jacen understood what she was talking about.

"In that case," Jacen said, concentrating for a brief second, "we better leave now before he shows his ugly face again."

Jaina felt her brother use the Force in a way she had never experienced before and was about to question what he had done when the ground began to shake. "What's going on?"

"I suggest we go now," Jacen repeated, urgency creeping into his voice.

His two female companions didn't question his judgment and all three ran to the Scavenger. A minute later the homemade ship was streaking away from the planet. "I'm reading some incredible thermal instabilities in the planet's core," Jaina reported from the cockpit. "What's going on down there?"

"I'm removing temptation," Jacen replied solemnly. The emotionally drained Jedi kept looking out his window as the spot in the field where he had last seen Ariela got smaller and smaller. Finally the whole country side was obscured by a cloud. Soon the whole continent was visible, and a moment later the entire planet fell into view. Twenty seconds later, the eruptions began. All over the planet's surface the superheated core began to spew fire in enormous geysers. The pressure kept building as the reaction Jacen started continued unabated. Soon entire continental plates began to explode under the pressure. Ten seconds later the globe itself dissolved into a burst of flame and rock. The explosion was quickly extinguished in the cold vacuum of space but the vaporized oceans and pulverized rock formed a huge nebula that would forever mark the spot where the planet had been.

Suddenly the nebula vanished as the Scavenger jumped into hyperspace. Jacen felt Jaina come up behind him. "You want to tell me what happened down there?"

"I promise I'll tell you all about, but right now I need to take a nap."

Jaina let her brother go for now. Jacen went to his bunk and dreamt about six adventures who battled together against every kind of foe imaginable to eventually save a beautiful young woman in a black dress and diamond necklace from an old man with a VR helmet.

The END

   [1]: mailto:dpontier@hotmail.com



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